Carving a life for himself in a completely foreign land wasn't very easy but Hiei was good at slipping through the cracks.

Jaisalmer was a desert city and the heat there was oppressive but that suited Hiei more than it irked him. Hiei stood out amidst the natives considering most of them had dark skins, sandy-brown hair and brown eyes in a large variety of shades. Hiei had made something of a comfort habit out of wearing contact lens as it was and that solved the eye colour trouble and his height was just below the average around there anyway.

Even apart from that, nobody was all too wary of him. Jaisalmer was a tourist city and foreigners weren't a rare sight in the land. The goings and comings of Hiei, or Jagan, which was a common Indian name, weren't questioned too much. It was the getting a job part that proved to be a difficulty.

He wasn't interested in going back to the prostitution rings. He wasn't cut out for them. The self-loathing that came with them always hit him hardest when it was the least convenient. He knew categorically that sex workers weren't bad people but somehow when it came to himself, those principles were forgotten quickly. He always had found it difficult to like himself.

This time, he was determined to not fall into the cycle again.

He was going to make something of his miracle shot at life and sex work, illegal as it was here and even more frowned upon, was already too close to the crime world for Hiei to even consider anyway.

So, he began by picking up odd jobs. He was strong, that was a fact. Once he could convince someone to actually give him a chance instead of dismissing him after a look at his height, he was good at holding down a job and get a referral strong enough that he was recommended to others, too even though people around here tended to hoard labourers for some reason.

His favourite gigs were definitely the ones when he was on a team of cleaners to get an old, heritage site, some palace or fort or pavilion for some event. He quite liked wandering around some forgotten relic of the past, feeling like he was a part of a life that was different from his own. Handy jobs made him feel useful and he discovered cleaning things quite helped in working nervousness out of his system, even if they didn't utilise his muscles like Hiei liked.

He lived on the down low and got by with what he could. It was harder finding a place to live but Chuu had handed him a decent amount of money, already converted and ready to use.

Kurama really had thought of everything.

It helped him get on his feet in the beginning, survive for as long as it took to find a job. He used the money to find a house, or a room, really and put the rest away till he could set up a bank account for himself.

However, he hadn't forged those documents by himself and while he could expect it from someone like Kurama to make a clean job of it, the documents were still fake and he didn't want to put them under too much scrutiny. So, he never started an account, never applied for the facilities and benefits the local government provided to the poor, which Hiei was. He stuck to himself, only talked to as many people as he absolutely needed to, and hoped he could make himself last till he found Yuusuke.

He was going to get Kurama back.

When news of Yuusuke's arrival in Delhi arrived, Hiei was working as a labourer at a construction site. It would have been suspicious to drop everything and leave, of course, and that was the only thing that held him down and forced him to actually plan things out.

In his bed, the night before he was due to leave for Delhi, Hiei recognised he had become too impulsive, too emotional when it came to Kurama. Desperate, even. It was a tactical disadvantage, sure and just overall not a great look. Hiei merely smiled though. He smiled, closed his eyes, and for thr first time since he had escaped, he allowed himself to think about a future beside Kurama.

When he'd get him back, he decided, they could come back here. Kurama would have a hard time adjusting to a life of meagre means after the sort of luxury he was accustomed to but Hiei didn't think he would complain. They could come here and they could work their butts off for the bare fucking minimum and they could be beside each other for the rest of forever and it won't be great, but it seemed pretty fucking stellar from where Hiei was sitting, alone on his bed with nothing but a mental image of the grinning redhead that had already started to fade.

Hiei decided he won't complicate it, nor would he allow Kurama to use his pretty words and twist Hiei's truths around. He wanted Kurama, he was desperate to find him and that was the truth. That was as far as it needed to go. They had fought against each other for way too long, said too much, too little and at the end, just not enough at all. Kurama could keep his complexities and Hiei would keep his anger. Really, he was already starting to forgive the redhead all his transgressions now that he wasn't in front of him.

Kurama was all Hiei had left in this whole, entire world. His sister had been torn from him and there was nothing Hiei ever was, by himself, anyway. It was only Kurama that kept him going, day and night.

He would find him. He would get him back.

Even if he had to kill Yuusuke the next day to do it.

…

Yuusuke didn't look like he had anything to do with gangsters, organised crime or any type of crime at all. He was very much the picture of a normal teenager, with his hunched shoulders and swaggering walk and insane amount of hair gel consumption by the day.

The quickness with which he intercepted Hiei, however, was what gave it away.

Hiei hadn't managed to sneak up on him. Yuusuke did not look the least bit surprised to bend over and curl into himself, his hand shooting out and catching Hiei's by the elbow joint and flipping him around so his back was pressed into Yuusuke's chest embarrassing ease.

He did look surprised when he noticed exactly who he was holding by the arm, however.

"Let go of me. Right the fuck now." Hiei growled.

Yuusuke dropped his arm and skipped away, eyes wide and mouth open.

"You're glad I wasn't interested in breaking your bloody jaw." Hiei said.

… and yet, he couldn't help it, the embarrassing swirl of emotions in his gut when he was finally brought face to face with someone from his past.

It had been so long.

He had gotten back and calculated it. He had been held captive for nearly three months when he escaped. That had been quite the shock. Hiei was convinced it had either been a week or a century.

He had been hiding here in India for a good eight months by now, biding his time and waiting for the right moment to make his move. He hadn't contacted anyone back home.

He couldn't stand to.

"Hiei," Yuusuke stared at him, still looking disbelieving. He looked exactly the same as he did when Hiei had left and with a start Hiei realised that one year wasn't all that much while looking in from the outside.

After fondness came anger.

There was a strong possibility he had sold Hiei out, despite what Kurama had said. There was a strong possibility Yuusuke had placed Yukina right in the lap of danger, and for what?

"Yuusuke," he glared.

He didn't know how to deal with the way Yuusuke's face lit up and he scampered over and threw his arms around Hiei.

"Hiei!"

He sounded close to tears.

"God we'd all been so fucking terrified. We thought you fucking died."

… and surely, surely, captivity had broken something in him, for Hiei felt himself lean into the boy's embrace.

"I missed you so much, where have you been?! Why didn't you call?! We missed you so much!"

Then, he planted a big wet one straight on Hiei's cheek.

Hiei cringed and stepped away, immediately looking disgusted. That made Yuusuke laugh and he grabbed Hiei by his biceps again.

"At least you look good. Alive." He squeezed Hiei's arms. "The muscles are still tight I see."

Hiei had meant to keep it strictly business but now he couldn't even imagine how he would have taken a blade to this man's throat like he had promised himself he would. This was it. If Yuusuke decided to rat him out, Hiei's cover would be blown.

"And why are here? Sneaking up on me in Genkai's lawn? Do you know her? Have you met her? She's my Nani, you know? Come on we should go inside."

Hiei brushed Yuusuke's arm off of his shoulders.

"How is she?"

Yuusuke's face fell, his eyes softening some.

"She is… fine. She is starting to come to terms with your absence."

That… was what he had wanted to hear and yet somehow it still stung.

"We did everything we could but I always did know if one day you decided to disappear no one could find you."

Hiei lowered his eyes. Was it possible that Yuusuke didn't know…?

Yes, yes it was.

He had made a clean break of the crime world the day Raizen died and never looked back. He was so little involved in anything most people did not even know his name. He was essentially a nobody and Kurama had said he didn't know anything.

Even so, it was not like letting Yuusuke know he had been abducted was going to be the biggest risk he was going to take today.

"I didn't want to disappear."

Yuusuke pursed his lips.

"The police said they couldn't find you anywhere. They looked. I looked."

"With your crime lord grandfather money?"

Yuusuke shut his mouth at that. The sunlight here was bright enough to make his silky black hair look as if it was shining.

"What do you want?" He finally asked.

"Help," Hiei said. "I need your help."

…

It was a gamble, trusting Yuusuke, but if he was going to ask for his assistance… if he was going to ask Yuusuke to essentially declare war on Yomi for his sake, he figured he owed him the truth.

It was a split second decision, as it always was with Hiei. Doubts tended to plague him till the very last second and that he was familiar with. It was some comfort that the characteristic anxiety was sitting in his breast. He didn't have a blindfold on. Yet.

He spilled his guts out to Yuusuke.

Sitting in his grandma Genkai's balcony, sipping better tea than Hiei had ever had in his life, relieved to finally be away from the way too sharp gazes of Genkai and her husband, Toguro, Hiei finally told someone everything.

Yuusuke gawped.

That was what made Hiei secure in his decision. Nobody could be that good an actor.

"I…," he began, rubbing a hand across his face.

"I knew who Yomi was and I knew Kurama was dating him. He made it seem as if it was on and off and like he was looking to break up with the man for good at some point. So when he showed interest in you I was too happy to question it."

Hiei lifted a brow.

"He showed interest in me?"

Yuusuke nodded.

"We were hanging out together that evening and I had to stop at the field behind the D&E, you know? Where you and the others played football sometimes? He saw you, said you were hot, I was like 'yeah I'll introduce you. Anything to get you to dump goatface.'"

"How long had you two been friends?"

Yuusuke shook his head, his expression becoming pinched as he realised the likelihood of the fact that he meant nothing to Kurama and had merely been used as a means to an end.

"A few months. I am not sure? I swear to you Hiei, I didn't know he was shady like that himself. I just thought he had fallen in love with the wrong man."

Hiei didn't bother to correct him. Once he found Kurama, he could do it himself and apologise to the idiot, too for he did look completely torn over this shit.

"It's fine. That's not… they would have found me anyway. It just would've been a lot messier if Kurama wasn't involved." He snorted. It had taken him a while to believe it but he knew the truth now.

"He did everything he could to protect me. To get… to just get the item they wanted from me."

Yuusuke ran a hand through his hair.

"What was it?"

Hiei felt himself gritting his teeth at that.

"I still don't fucking know. It was a bracelet that I apparently stole but I never fucking did. I would've fucking remembered. And they were convinced I had it too. Like shit, I have no idea…"

Hiei allowed himself to trail off, knowing he had nothing of value to say about this particular topic. He would just devolve into a frantic rant and nothing would be achieved there.

"How did you escape?"

Now that was another can of worms in itself and opening that one left Yuusuke looking even more flabbergasted.

He didn't seem to be able to find words for a good while after that, sitting with him mouth open and eyes not really looking at anything. It was then and there that Hiei became convinced that the boy had had nothing to do with any of this, or anything truly bad at all. There was an innocence to his face that was peculiar to people with a conscience. Hiei could have never found that in his or Kurama's faces.

"Help me, Yuusuke." He muttered.

If it were about anything else… he would have rather slit his throat than ask someone for help.

… and really, that was how it all started wasn't it?

But when it came to Kurama? The mere loss of Hiei's pride was quite a sweet deal to be struck in exchange for Kurama.

"How? If you need to come back home safely, I can arrange that. Or do you want Yukina to move here? I will have you know Kuwabara will have to come with though. He hasn't let Yukina out of his sight since you disappeared."

"No. No, that's not what I was talking about. I need your help to go get Kurama out of that hell hole."

The colour drained out of his face then and for the first time Hiei wondered if the rumours were exaggerated. Yuusuke sure looked ready to die at the mere proposal. He would have to rethink his entire plan if that were the case of course and that was going to be difficult. He cursed under his breath. Every second Kurama spent by Yomi's side was a punishment for him.

"Hiei, do you not know?"

Hiei frowned, already a bit pissed at Yuusuke for not being who people made him out to be.

"What don't I know?" He frowned.

"Kurama. Hiei, he is dead."

…

Hiei punched Yuusuke's lights out at that and quite literally, too. He fainted.

Next to Yuusuke's prone form, Hiei paced the floor like a caged animal, hands in his hair and brain working overtime to calm his nerves down. What would Yuusuke know, anyway? He had already proven he was a fucking idiot and he rarely had any accurate information.

Hiei knew he was breathing too hard, too fast and that his fingers had started shaking. He couldn't even see two paces in front of him, there were black spots in his vision.

By the time the door was thrown open and Genkai's small figure appeared in front of Hiei, there were tears running down his face. He was trembling from head to toe and there wasn't one coherent thought in his head.

He needed to punch something. He needed to watch something break underneath his bare fists. He needed it to be that idiotic Kurama's fucking head.

Why hadn't he gone with Hiei?

Genkai took one look at her grandson's body, clicked her tongue and launched herself across the space towards Hiei. Before Hiei could ready himself, he was being knocked in the chest. He soared through the air, crashed against the balustrade and immediately passed out.

…

He woke up in a soft bed, between warm sheets. He opened his eyes and the memories came rushing back.

"Yuusuke!" He was screaming before he had so much as sat up, jumping out of the much too high bed. The room was unfamiliar and that only put him even more on edge.

No way that bastard was dead.

"I am right here, stop screaming." A voice called out from the other side of the bed.

Hiei whipped around to stare at Yuusuke, lounging in his chair by his bedside.

"You didn't have to do that." Yuusuke said.

"Why the fuck would you say something like that?" Hiei growled, stalking his way around the bed.

Yuusuke stood up, eyebrows pinched together now.

"Look here. I will let that one go cause Genkai told me how wrecked you looked when she found you. She was convinced you were gonna murder someone so she had to knock you out, sorry about that. But you will not hit me again. None of this is my fault and you won't make it so."

Hiei hadn't even heard any of that, not really.

"Quit shitting and tell me why you'd say something like that, you asshole!"

Yuusuke closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"I said it cause it's true. I am sorry Hiei but he's gone."

Hiei bunched his fists till his entire arm trembled with tension.

"He can't be gone. He told me he was coming with me." He ground out.

"And then he didn't. You know it. You told me it. They found his body Hiei. Why would I ever lie to you about this?"

Hiei shook his head, body edged to attack except he didn't know who or what to go at. Yuusuke didn't seem like a feasible target all of a sudden.

Not to mention, there was a thick wall of something that felt a lot like tears climbing up the back of his throat and Hiei hated himself for it.

He wasn't going to cry. He wasn't going to cry over that stupid, fucking man of all people.

He wasn't.

"If you want me to leave you for a second that's fine." Yuusuke offered. He looked like he might lay a hand on Hiei's shoulder but he hesitated and rightly so because if he had touched Hiei just then, he'd have broken his bloody hand and been entirely unable to do anything to stop it.

"No. Fuck." Hiei closed his eyes and saw Kurama's face when he had sat in front of him and told him about his 'marriage'. He reopened them, hastily.

Tell me what happened. How did this happen?

He couldn't say the words though. It felt too much like accepting he was gone. When he fucking wasn't.

There was no way…

Hiei's fingers fell limp, hands dangling by his side.

Yuusuke seemed to get the hint. He sat back down and nodded at Hiei to take a seat on the bed. Hiei didn't move and Yuusuke went on anyway.

"The initial attack by Mukuro? Your diversion? He survived it but barely. From what I know now, I think that was always the plan. He was counting on it. Yomi and Karasu were immediately distracted when they arrived. Yomi was obviously livid but from what I heard, and I rarely have the full picture, Hiei, I try to keep my nose outta this shit ya know? From what I heard, Karasu wasn't very eager to act. He and Mukuro have decent relations and I think he thought it was important to maintain that. I don't know exactly what came to pass but he left back to Japan soon enough. There ought to have been another attack or something though. Every body on the inside thinks it was Mukuro but I am not sure. She is too proud to sneak around.

"It was Yomi whose body was discovered first. There was a rose pendant next to him and like it's supposed to be super expensive or something. Don't know. I had seen it on Kurama though and I am pretty sure Yomi gave it to him. They found Kurama just a few paces away. His body was burnt to a crisp. There was so much carnage in that manor that night, Hiei… I don't even. I don't know what they did to him but he's gone. That's for sure."

Through the entire disjointed tale, Hiei had not a word to say. He couldn't lift his gaze from where it had come to rest on Yuusuke's sneakers.

"If…- if his body was burnt so badly, how do we even know it was him?"

"I thought the same thing. But they had witnesses that he was the last man in the room with Yomi when the attack happened. Also the hair. A good part of his skull, was, like, not burnt and…"

Yuusuke trailed off. His shoulders were pulled up to his ears and he looked like he might break down himself any second.

"Yuusuke," Hiei looked up at him. His voice came out breathy and weak and he shook himself, tried again. It didn't help. "Yuusuke, he meant something to me. Look me in the eye and tell me he's dead."

Yuusuke shook his head.

"Why would I lie to you?"

"Is there no chance? No chance he's still alive?"

"They haven't seen an inch of him in the past seven months."

"That means nothing!" Hiei cried in desperation.

"You don't get it, Hiei. Karasu was looking for him. If he couldn't find Kurama that means Kurama is dead."

Hiei tried to reach for Yuusuke, tried to shake him till he saw sense but his legs won't move and his head felt like lead. Something very weird was happening to his chest and it felt as if he wasn't breathing even though he was.

"The hair, the pendant… I am sorry. I get how you feel. But he's gone."

Hiei shook his head.

"People were saying he died protecting Yomi. The pendant next to him was bloodied and charred and…-"

"You idiot!"

It came out as a disgusting half-sob.

Yuusuke stared at him, startled into silence.

"He killed Yomi."

…and this, Hiei knew as surely as he knew his own name.

Yuusuke began to say something and Hiei cut him off with a half-hearted swipe of his hand through the air.

"There's no way he'd let someone else steal that from him. You tell me he's dead and you believe it and I can tell you without needing to speak to him that he killed Yomi and we'll see which one of us was closer to the truth in time."

…

Yuusuke tried to make Hiei stay the night at Genkai's. He was in no state to put up a fight, so he didn't, nodding along to whatever Yuusuke was saying. After everyone fell asleep, Hiei snuck out.

The journey back home couldn't be longer, even though it took less than half a day. Every second was a drag on Hiei's mind and heart. When he closed his eyes, he saw Kurama and so, he didn't. He didn't sleep, he didn't think. He just shoved earphones into his ears and listened through a million playlists during the bus ride home.

Kurama being gone wasn't a new feeling to Hiei at this point but the finality of it this time hurt somewhere deep in his chest. He didn't believe it, he told himself he didn't. How could he? His world had more or less revolved around Kurama for the past year or so and now he was just gone?

There was no way that was true.

Hadn't he been as desperate to get to Hiei as Hiei was to find him?

… why didn't he come looking for Hiei?

When he got back home, he took off his clothes, plugged his phone to charge and crashed. He slept straight through two days and when he woke up his body felt crushed, his head like someone had beaten it in. His phone was ringing. It was Yuusuke.

He had called something short of three hundred times already.

"Leave me alone." Hiei growled at the phone.

It was pretty redundant, really.

Everyone already had, after all.

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