It was a good night after that. Kuwabara declared nobody would talk about depressing ass shit anymore and since depressing was the only adjective applicable to both Hiei and Kurama's entire lives, they shut up and let the couple talk.

They ate and drank and laughed, even Hiei did. It felt good. Kuwabara and Yukina informed him they had a hotel. Hiei felt like asking if they had separate rooms but reminded himself Yukina was twenty-three now and shut up.

Kurama elbowed him with a smirk anyway and Hiei glared.

Hiei wasn't planning to. He really wasn't. Truth be told, he still hated Kurama's guts a little but Yukina and Kuwabara left and that piece of shit turned to him and asked,

"Wanna go to your apartment or get a hotel?"

Hiei waved down an auto rickshaw and dragged the bastard in by his collar.

…

"Take that fucking wig off." Was the first thing Hiei said to him when they entered Kurama's lavish hotel suite. With a grin tossed over his shoulder, Kurama lifted his fingers to his hairline.

Hiei looked away. He didn't want to watch this unfamiliar man transform into him. Just for this night, he wanted to pretend none of this fucked up shit had ever happened, that Kurama had come back to him from a long day of work and his body was all Hiei's, to take and fuck his frustrations into.

It would be just them.

Hiei closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

When he turned around, the man standing in front of him was the same Kurama from back in the day, with his red pony tail and mischievous green eyes. The only difference was that he stood stark naked, hands on his hips and smirk on his face.

"Well?" He cocked his head.

Hiei cursed under his breath, immediately feelings himself stir in his pants, his cock beginning to gain interest in the activities.

"Can't believe I was the whore out of the two of us." Hiei said.

"Is that what you want?" Kurama stalked closer to Hiei, lightly resting a hand on his shoulder. "A whore for the night that you will forget in the morning?"

Hiei gritted his teeth. How dare this bastard think…

All these years, hadn't Hiei faithfully kept Kurama in his thought? In his heart? Or whatever he had in the name of one.

He pushed against Kurama's shoulder, making him stumble a step back. His careful smirk cracked and Hiei felt a vindictive stab of pleasure.

"Forget you?" Hiei barked.

"God, I wish I could have." Another shove, this one to Kurama's lower stomach, close to where his cock hung heavy between his legs.

"All this time…- everything would've been so much easier if I could've just forgotten you."

Hiei's fist tightened around Kurama's wrist and he dragged him over to where the bed was set up in the middle of the room. It was easy to shover Kurama on to the bed, considering he wasn't resisting in the least. He wasn't smiling anymore either.

Hiei climbed on top of Kurama, pressing him back into the pillows, stretching himself across his body. He grabbed Kurama's jaw and forced the redhead to look into his eyes.

"Tell me you don't have a new husband."

That startled a little laugh out of Kurama.

Hiei felt his breath get caught in his chest at the familiarity of that little sound.

"No," Kurama shook his head.

"No boyfriends?"

"No!" Kurama giggled. His eyes looked misty, like he was going to cry any second.

The curve of Kurama's mouth, teased a grin from Hiei, despite the anger churning in the pit of his stomach, like a dragon curled around his body and waiting to be unleashed.

"Sure? Take your time."

Kurama bit his lip, another breathy, little laugh falling from his lips.

"There's no one! I have no one but you."

Hiei leaned down and kissed him.

Kurama responded eagerly, his hands climbing into Hiei's hair, travelling down his back, gripping at his neck. He had to lean up a little to be able to kiss Hiei properly, given their height difference but he didn't seem to mind, greedily playing around with Hiei's tongue, nipping and tangling with it.

Hiei didn't possess the patience with which Kurama was indulging him and his hands were all over the place, groping at the flesh around Kurama's hips and then tugging at his own jeans, reaching down to stroke Kurama's cock and then struggling with the buttons on his own shirt, mouthing along Kurama's neck and then grudgingly lifting from the eager body beneath him to tear his shirt off of himself.

"I am going to fuck you so hard, you will pass out."

… and yet, when their naked bodies began sliding together, Kurama's eyes turned out to be a little too overwhelming for Hiei's heart. He buried his face in the crook of Kurama's neck, breathing long and harsh. His heart was racing and he was waiting for it to calm down as he held Kurama's waist in his arms, feeling the man shiver against his body.

Gently, Kurama's fingers carded through Hiei's hair, gently untangling knots and sifting through strands to mess up his entire hair style. Hiei couldn't care less though, too busy trying to school his heart into obedience. It won't stop hurtling around in Hiei's chest with a heartbeat so intense it felt as if a sledgehammer was being taken to the confines of his rib cage. He didn't know how quickly his body would give out or how much longer he could hold it in. He wanted to do what he'd told Kurama he was going to do! He didn't want to look just as stupid, just as overwhelmed, and just as useless to Kurama all this time as he was back then. He had promised Kurama he was going to fuck him, made him take off his clothes, touched him all over… so how could he not, now?

Hiei tried to bury himself deeper into Kurama's skin, unable to understand why despite his hard cock leaking between their bodies, he couldn't bring himself to move from where he had carved a place for himself in Kurama's arms.

"I have been travelling a lot lately, actually kinda tired. I don't think I could take you tonight, Hiei."

Hiei didn't move, thoroughly embarrassed and angry again.

"Look at me,"

Kurama nudged his shoulder till Hiei's face was forced out of the crook of his neck. Hiei glared down at him and Kurama stole a soft kiss from his mouth.

"I've never had sex, Hiei. It was always something that was done to me when I didn't want it."

Hiei's fingers clenched around Kurama's hips.

"First Karasu, then Yomi," Kurama snorted. "And it was not as if my marriage from Yomi stopped Karasu from just taking what he wanted, anyway."

Hiei closed his eyes, gritting his teeth against the harsh words.

It was not that he hadn't known… but to hear it was no pleasure. It was only Hiei's failure to perform, after all, that had made Kurama drudge all of this up.

"What I am trying to say is, you're the only guy I've ever wanted this from. And I want you to want me. Not only here," Kurama's fingers ghosted along the underside of Hiei's dick before they came to settle on his chest. "But here, too."

"You lied to me."

He didn't mean to say it, wasn't even really thinking of it and yet it came out, a naked accusation that made Kurama flinch, clearly not expecting it in the tenderness of this moment.

"It was the only way, Hiei."

"Every second more that you spent with Yomi, I spent praying to a god I never even believed in for your safety, praying he didn't hurt you, didn't touch you and then somebody told me you fucking died."

Kurama's fingers traced along Hiei's cheekbones, wiping away ghosts of tears Hiei won't spill in front of him.

"I am sorry-…"

"You don't fucking get it, do you?! I thought you were fucking dead!"

He was fully screaming in Kurama's face now, eyes riveted on his green ones to leech every emotion and reaction that they displayed. Hiei was ravenous, he realised, lustful, too. It wasn't Kurama's body he wanted tonight, though no matter how gorgeous the redhead looked, spread out naked on Hiei's bed.

"Five years I have gone on, just existing. I have a degree and a job and a house because Chuu told me to not waste what you gave me but I don't even know who I am anymore!"

Kurama gulped, his mouth falling. He was no longer looking Hiei in the eyes.

"I don't know who I am without you, Kurama!"

"You're the person you were before you met me." Kurama responded, voice a mere whisper.

"No," Hiei shook his head. "That was a child trying to do his best. Sometimes he fucked up. Badly. But he wasn't in the position to be anyone. You gave me that. Look at me!"

Hiei shook Kurama till the man lifted his eyes to him.

"You gave me a whole new life and I wanted to live it with you, you fucking asshole. I wanted to learn who I was, what I liked, what I wanted. Do you know I don't even know what colour I liked best? Or I didn't till I met you and now it's fucking green!

"I don't know what to do with that! I don't know what to do with you! Maybe you shouldn't have protected me from them. Guns I understand. Violence I understand. Torture I understand. What you did to me though? I don't get it. I don't like it. I am out of my world but you said you were going to come with me."

Kurama began frantically shaking his head. His face was twisted in pure agony.

"That was not your world. Look at you, now! You made something out of yourself, all by yourself, in a whole new country! The world is your world, Hiei, not Yomi's fucking cage."

Hiei didn't have anything to say to that. It all sounded like a lie.

"And I came back, didn't I?" Kurama entreated, hands stroking Hiei's cheeks, hair, back, any part of his body Kurama could get to. "I came back the moment I could. And I didn't even know if you'd want me. I am a crime lord's whore and then his murderer and you are a law student with a job and a life and actual family that loves you. But I came to find you. Shouldn't that mean something?"

Hiei pulled back, bringing himself to sit on his knees, a few pace away from Kurama. He had gone soft and his heart had calmed down. It meant nothing, though because he didn't really know how they were going to walk away from this.

"How did you do this? You said you couldn't."

Before Kurama could respond, Hiei was standing up and dressing himself with hasty movements. Kurama watched him, devastation written all over his face.

"Where are you going?" He asked, his voice breaking with nervousness.

"Are you leaving?"

Hiei didn't know, so he just shrugged.

"Will you come back?" Was Kurama's final question. Hiei didn't answer it before he left the suite.

…

Hiei had countless haunts across the city where he'd hide out from no one in particular. One such haunt was an abandoned warehouse that nobody but Hiei seemed to care about. It had lain bare for years now and Hiei had no qualms about helping himself to the space, given how much of it there was lying completely unused.

It was there that his steps took him. He wasn't surprised. It was a good distance away from Kurama's hotel and closer to his own house.

Hiei couldn't really remember his feelings for Kurama being that strong when he left and this sense of betrayal he was now feeling came straight out of the left field. He tried to tell himself Kurama owed him nothing which was somehow true and false all at once. It sent his head spinning and Hiei's default state of mind being anger, said confusion was taken out on walls in the form of fists flying at them.

He supposed he could at least be glad he wasn't one for denial. That would've delayed this entire process by quite a long while.

He had met his sister after nearly half a decade today and somehow that had been ruined. That Kurama really was a selfish jerk.

Hiei laughed a little at that because, he was and so was Hiei. He hadn't once asked Kurama how he was, after all.

At the end of the day, they were both selfish and they'd both done what they could to protect what mattered the most to them. To Hiei, that was Yukina and to Kurama, that was him.

It was a sobering thought.

He stopped being that angry once he acknowledged that. It wasn't as if Kurama was lying. Hiei knew the risks. He understood them, he always had. The fact of the matter though, was that never had his heart been involved in affairs such as this before and so that innate understanding was falling sort of weak as an excuse. Hiei couldn't do without Kurama. He knew that. Even in his bones, he could feel that if he was to push Kurama away today, he would end up being the one chasing the redhead not a day later. It was difficult to accept what had happened though. To Hiei, himself, everything had seemed like an easy escape till that final blow came. He had no scars from his time in captivity except for the one that had been carved into his soul at Genkai's house that afternoon.

Hiei was hurt.

In more than the physical sense, which was exactly what he couldn't deal with.

He sat down in the dirt, sweaty and panting and leaned his head against the wall.

It shouldn't have come as a surprise, really. Hiei had not a single excuse why his eyes shot wide when he realised that he had feeling for Kurama.

He'd had them then and he still carried them in his chest to the day and this time, they went beyond the typical intrigue and lust Hiei had always felt around Kurama.

Maybe their time apart had sweetened the deal, Hiei thought as he let his head lol to the side, weary and sleepy all of a sudden. Maybe after a month together, Hiei would hate Kurama's guts again but just then it didn't seem to matter. Tonight wasn't a month later, tonight was tonight and tonight he wanted to hold Kurama and touch his hair and kiss his mouth and have sex with him and scream at him till his throat ran hoarse.

Exhausted beyond help, Hiei crashed right there and then.

…

The morning was embarrassing because he was dirty and sweaty and Kurama's posh hotel staff refused to let him in, instead insisting on informing Kurama who bustled down in a hurry, grabbing Hiei by the shoulders.

His eyes were red.

Shamelessly, Hiei grinned.

"You look like you were crying."

Kurama slapped his shoulder.

"Have breakfast with me." Hiei demanded.

…

Hiei didn't want to go to the hotel restaurant looking the way he did so they ordered room service.

"Yukina and Kuwabara want to have lunch together. They actually proposed brunch but I got them to hold it till later." Kurama informed Hiei once he got off the phone with the kitchen staff.

"Brunch?" Hiei made a face. "How fancy are they?"

Kurama grinned.

"I mean if they're gonna pay…" he shrugged.

"You're such a cheapskate."

"I am not but I never turn down free food either."

"Good to know how easily bought you are."

In the morning light, Hiei couldn't help but notice exactly how big Kurama's suite was. He went to stand in front of the floor length windows. The view outside wasn't all that impressive, considering the hotel faced a highway, but it was a nice touch.

"What do you do? For money?"

"Nothing," Kurama shurgged. "I spend Karasu's."

"You managed to get him to transfer funds or something."

Kurama walked over to come stand next to Hiei.

"No. He had a bit of cash lying around, quite a lot in his safe actually but it's not gonna last forever. Eventually I am gonna have to look for a job. I have been in discussions with people as to what to do with the money, investments and stuff so like I can make more from it. I don't have a college degree, never finished school. Dunno what sort of a job I could get otherwise."

"I could be your sugar daddy." Hiei joked.

"When you have a sugar mama yourself? Sounds like a pyramid scheme."

Hiei gave him a glance from the corner of his eyes.

"You did your research."

Kurama grinned.

"Always was a little too interested in you."

"Well, then you should know your information is out of date. As of yesterday, I officially don't have a sugar mama any more. I am gonna pay her back. For everything. But I think I can make it on my own now."

"I am proud of you, Hiei."

Hiei hummed.

A little honesty won't hurt, would it?

"I am proud of you, too."

"Why?" Kurama scoffed. "For murder?"

Hiei turned himself to face Kurama, keeping his eyes on Kurama's to make him see he wasn't fucking around.

"Yeah."

Kurama grinned. For a second, his grin was all sharpness, like a shark's.

"Thanks."

Breakfast was a quite affair, after which Hiei stripped and went to take a shower. He didn't really have clothes to change into but Kurama had already seen everything so he figured he could just roam around in his underwear and that'd be fine.

When he stepped out of the washroom, Kurama was on his back, his head hanging off of the edge of the bed. He was staring at something outside of the windows, a tiny smile on his face.

Hiei had never stopped marvelling at how Kurama always managed to look so serene and yet like a conniving little shit at the same time. It always amused him and yet what caught his eye now wasn't the various shadows of mischief dancing across Kurama's face.

Rather, it was the fixed, steady something behind his eyes.

Like he was finally at peace.

Yeah, Hiei was pretty fucking proud of Kurama.

…

The conversation happened while Kurama was getting dressed to go to Hiei's so Hiei could change into appropriate clothes for their lunch plans.

"Mukuro captured me that night. The night you left. I struck a deal with her. I'd tell her the perfect ways and time to attack us when Yomi returned and I would ask a faction of the guards to stand down too, not raise the alarm till it was too late. In exchange she'd let me kill Yomi and bring along the dead body of a man of my height and weight, with hair like mine, too burnt to be recognised for sure. She agreed. She's a reasonable woman."

"She's a viper." Hiei spat out.

"That too." Kurama agreed. "Good thing she had bigger fish to fry than good ole' me."

"Did you get her to help with Karasu?"

"No, that was all me. Karasu… was less than impressed by Yomi at that point. When he and Yomi rushed in after the attack, Yomi pressurised Karasu to retaliate against Mukuro. Now Mukuro was too valuable a piece for Karasu to get rid of. Not to mention, he just couldn't have. If Mukuro operated under Karasu's thumb, it was because she chose to. From all the way over in Japan, Karasu had little standing of his own if she decided to go against him. Keeping Mukuro by his side meant he had some amount of control over her territory, which he wasn't willing to loose over Yomi, who was too dumb to see any of this. By this time they discovered you were gone. Karasu used that to brush Yomi off. It was very convenient for me, I will be honest.

"It was more difficult to get to Karasu. I couldn't do it as Kurama, who was dead so I became Shuichi. Nobody but a businessman. Important enough for Karasu to know about but not so much that he felt the need to actually meet me or try to influence me. Just a pocket smuggler under Sakyo."

"Who's Sakyo?"

"One of Karasu's partners. That man has no loyalties though. He just wants to watch the world burn."

"Did he know of your little plan?"

"I never told him but I think he did. I think he knows everything, to be honest with you."

"How did you get to Karasu?"

"It took me a long while. I wanted to build a back up so that if I was caught I would still have somewhere to run, which meant establishing myself as someone within the circles, but with virtually no presence outside for me to be traced back to. Nobody knew, not even my closest men like Chuu or Touya or Jin. No one. Just like you they thought I was dead."

"I am surprised Chuu didn't hunt me down."

"So am I, actually. I only contacted them the day of the party which was supposed to be the cover as I went in. I smuggled the cash and jewellery out first, which they helped me with. The rest was simplicity in itself and that's why I didn't get caught. People were trying to sniff out deep political plots, nobody cared to look into little Shuichi who smuggled wine for them sometimes."

Hiei remained staring at Kurama, not satisfied with that explanation. It lacked too much, said too little about how the deed had actually been done.

When Hiei raised a brow, Kurama gulped.

"I got in. Didn't go out. Killed him in his sleep. Left at night. Never looked back."

Hiei narrowed his eyes.

"It was nerve-wracking. I pissed my pants nearly a thousand times." Kurama added lamely.

It was clear that he didn't want to talk about this at all but Hiei didn't know how to bring it up then and so, to keep Kurama going, he didn't.

"What happened after that?"

"Nothing really," Kurama shrugged. "I went to find Yukina and Kuwabara. Met with Yuusuke first. Together we told them the truth and I flew them out to you. I told you. I wasn't lying. I came to you the moment it became safe to."

"How could it have been so simple though? You always made it seem like a hopeless situation." Hiei accused.

Kurama shook his head.

"It seemed like a hopeless situation because I had no hope, Hiei. Do you remember Kuronue?"

Hiei nodded.

"After what happened to him I felt paralysed. I couldn't even think of leaving. I couldn't deal with the fact that he had died because of me. I just- I was so scared Hiei. The only person who had given a shit about me was dead and it had happened because he cared about me. I was his undoing. It was all me."

Kurama scratched his hair, wrung his hands together and fidgeted around like his body was suddenly the wrong size for him.

"And then there you were. I thought you were just another assignment and yet the more I talked to you… I couldn't let something like that happen to you, not when I got you into this mess. I just had to get you out. I couldn't involve you in my revenge plots, because it could cost you your life. I won't have been able to take that."

"What? You wanted to protect me so you did something you never could before?"

"No. I did something I never had the guts to do before."

Hiei couldn't find anything to say to that and Kurama sighed.

"You make me desperate Hiei. I was desperate to save you so I did. I was desperate to come back to you and here I am. That's all there is to it. Believe what you will."

…

It wasn't satisfying, in terms of an explanation but it made enough sense for Hiei to let it go. They got into a cab, entered Hiei's apartment. Hiei dressed himself while Kurama made tons of comments on Hiei's seemingly awful taste in interior decor.

Once Hiei was done, he grabbed Kurama by the wrist and dragged him out. He was having too much fun at Hiei's expense, picking apart all of his choices and decisions for the house.

Lunch was a nice, quiet affair. Or as quiet as a party hosting Kuwabara could be. Hiei was, surprisingly, not irritated by the least though. He had underestimated how much he had missed that dumb oaf.

On the better note, Hiei got the chance to introduce the three of them to traditional Rajasthani cuisine. It always did seem like something of a wonder when you had it for the first time ever.

As it turned out, however, he had underestimated how good it'd feel to share a meal, safe from everyone and everything in the world, with the three most important people in the world.

He didn't have a definitive ranking in his mind, however. He was not brave enough to place Kurama second or insane enough to go with Kuwabara. They just were there. A part of his circle. That was more than enough.

Hiei smiled a little as he listened to Yukina talk about this cat they had just adopted. He didn't think he had seen her that excited in… ever, really. That was a bittersweet realisation but he was in the best of spirits, so he chose to focus on the fact that after everything, at least now, she got to feel the happiness and sense of security that Hiei could never give her.

For that, Hiei loved Kuwabara just a little bit more.

With the white wig and lenses, Kurama was damn near unrecognisable, the glare of the sun way too bright for Hiei to be able to ignore his changed features and so he avoided looking at him. Just his voice was enough. His voice hadn't changed at all, even though he had lost a little of his American accent.

At some point, Kurama snuck his hand under the table and grasped Hiei's, squeezing his palm, gently.

Are you mad at me?

Hiei could almost hear him asking through that shared touch.

It was a loaded question and it felt heavier than any other that Hiei himself had to ask of the man. It seemed to transcend his doubts, his anger and his frustrations, a little too big to be put into words.

Was Hiei mad at Kurama?

… and yet, that wasn't what he was asking. Not really?

Will you look at me?

There, that was closer.

The answer, however, in contrast to Hiei's own expectations, was neither a yes nor a no.

A request for time, rather.

A little unsure but mostly excited was how he felt, caught in sunlight, his cheeks warm with suppressed laughter and belly full of a delicious meal, when he closed his fingers around Kurama's.

He wasn't going to let go, not now, not after all of this.

Not after against everything, against all odds- Kurama had come back to him.

He'd need some time to truly wrap his brain around all of this, to figure out what Kurama meant to him and what he meant to Kurama, where they'd go from here, how long they would stay beside each other… all of those would be things they needed to figure out.

After Kurama stepped away form the life of crime. For good.

He forced himself to turn around and look into Kurama's eyes, across his soft, curious smile and light, anxious frown. Shyly, completely uncharacteristically, Hiei squeezed Kurama's hand in response.

Whatever the colour of his hair may be for the day, Hiei never wanted Kurama out of his sight again.