Kirei na Kanjou
~ Beautiful Feeling ~
by feifu
01/14/2003
homepage: www.freewebs.com/killersrant
email: domain_of_fire@yahoo.com
Disclaimers: (Can't make a fanfic without putting this) Yuyu Hakusho, and all its characters and plot, is the original creation of Yoshiro Togashi. I do not claim to own any of the characters in this story except for Faith Phillipp and Annette Barton, who are my own creations and are inspired by people I know in real life. Any similarities to real life people/events or if you by chance know anybody whose names are similar to the two characters, I avow that these are mere coincidences. I don't profit from writing this fanfiction so please don't sue.
6
Faith was pacing.
She had been doing so for the past hour and a half. She felt decidedly restless. Nothing seemed to catch her attention for more than a few minutes. None of the usual things she did to ease her boredom appealed to her, and even the usually enjoyable continual plotting to make her roommate closer to Minamino-san didn't seem to help tonight.
She growled. That was probably one of the problems. Apart from those two instances that she'd managed to corner Minamino-san at the University, she couldn't seem to pin down his whereabouts this past whole week. She'd even gone and asked his younger brother what his schedule was, only to be told that the younger Shuuichi also didn't know beyond that his brother had a habit of at times disappearing for several days, only calling his mother on the phone to let them know he was alright and never telling them where he was nor when he would be coming back.
It was so frustrating! So she didn't want to think about it. Screw Minamino Shuuichi for the while. She didn't want to think about him and the challenge he posed to her. But she was intrigued, that was for sure. Where did he go? What did he do?
She suddenly wondered if what she told Annette still held true, about her not being interested in Minamino Shuuichi romantically. She was spending an inordinate amount of time thinking about the guy, trying to second guess where he would appear, trying her best to learn as much about him as possible. She was turning into a full-blown stalker! All, she had told herself before, for the sole task of telling Annette about whatever information she could find so the other girl could use that to get closer to the elusive and mysterious Minamino Shuuichi.
But now she suddenly started wondering about herself. She stood stock still staring through the Venetian blinds at the dark window across the road that she knew was his room.
"No, no, no, no, no…" she muttered under her breath, "Jesus H. Christ and all the assorted saints… you can't possibly be serious…!"
"What's bothering you now?" Annette looked at her roommate from where she stood drying her hands. She'd just finished washing the dishes, having just had her rather solitary dinner because she couldn't make Faith stop pacing.
"Uhm?" Faith gave her a sickly grin, "Nothing, Ann-chan! Nothing! My life is absolutely perfect!" She muttered something under her breath that Annette couldn't understand and then suddenly asked, seemingly out of the blue, "Anou ne, Ann-chan? How does a person know if he or she is in love?"
Annette was looking at her curiously. "You're seriously asking me?"
"Uh-huh," Faith nodded.
"I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"Well, I guess it's different for every person."
"How?"
"How should I know?"
"Okay, well, how is it with you?"
"Huh?" Annette pointed at herself. "Me?"
"Yeah. You. How do you know if you're in love?"
"Why are you asking me this all of a sudden?"
"Just tell me!"
"Is this a pop quiz or something?"
"No!" Faith barked out. "I'm just asking! Is anything wrong with that? I'm just curious, ok? Can't you just answer the frickin' question?"
This was the first time Annette saw her lose her temper. "Geez, calm down, will you?"
"Oh, never mind…" Having said that, Faith went towards the couch where she'd flung her coat when she arrived earlier. She grabbed her coat and smiling at Annette said, "I'm going out for a while. Don't wait up, k?"
"Uh," Annette was looking at her weirdly. What was wrong with her now? She wondered. "Okay." She needed to turn in early anyway coz she had an early study group meeting tomorrow.
Faith spent the remainder of the night barhopping. She lost track of time as she overspent herself dancing amongst half-acquaintances she'd normally not associate with had she a choice. But even after so many hours, she didn't feel in any way cleansed of the thoughts she was having before going out in the first place.
Something… she thought as she staggered home, half-drunk. Something about this night didn't sit quite right with her. She felt frustrated, irritated, anxious, and melancholy all at the same time and it bothered her to the quick that she couldn't pinpoint why. Something felt… missing and she didn't know what it was!
What she knew for sure was that she wanted to go away for even just a little while from having to think or even encounter thoughts not her own about their errant and missing red-head neighbor.
She closed her eyes in frustration. Thinking about not thinking about him was thinking about him, damn it! Why couldn't that idiot man just leave her thoughts?
"It's all Annette's fault!" Faith shouted at the night.
Come to think of it, it wasn't. She was the one who always tried to drag Annette into trying to meet with Minamino Shuuichi and not the other way around. She was the one who kept a vigil at their apartment window trying to see the minimal happenings at the house across the street, specifically the bedroom window near the large maple tree where she knew Shuuichi's room was. It was all her.
"It was me, me, me… damn dang darnit! Annette wasn't doing anything but trying to study or watch TV or just do whatever she needed to do! I was the big stupid fool who kept hounding her to meet with that blasted guy! And why? Why?! WHY?! Supposedly to make him and Annette become closer. It's clear Annette's attracted to him, else why's she so… argh! I hate it! Why'd I have to involve myself with this anyway? Just because I'm frickin' bored?!"
Several minutes of fast paced walking in a semi-drunken haze and irritation with herself passed before Faith realized that she was in a different part of town. In a part she didn't know existed.
She found herself standing in the midst of a garden so vast that it was staggering in size and in it were plants that she didn't recognize. She blinked, trying to clear her head. This couldn't be right; there were no parks this vast in the city.
She turned around, thinking to walk back the way she came when she realized that she wasn't standing on the paved sidewalk of the city streets but a pathway of beaten grass about ten inches high. She looked around in a hurry trying to discern any exit from the garden but she could only see grass and plants everywhere.
Her heart was now beating fast. Too fast. Faith abruptly felt something, like a tight vice grip, clenching at her heart. She fought it but after a few moments succumbed to the deep darkness she couldn't fight off anymore.
Hiei was bored.
It wasn't his idea to become involved again in the team that patrolled the borders of the Makai against the unlikely event of a human crossing or the more likely youkai seeking entrance to the Ningenkai, but Mokuro herself had asked him to volunteer for this job and he would darn well stick to it even when the Tournament itself was less than two weeks away.
He had been right with what he told Kurama before; with the Tournament coming, those idiots in charge of his current job have all gone their separate ways to train. He vowed to personally skewer those idiots once he could get his hands on them.
Right now though, he had to endure hours of not having anything to do besides wait around a camp and looking for the improbable signs of trouble with a half dozen witless fools who he didn't care to waste his saliva on in the first place.
He was about to take a catnap when the relative babble in the camp suddenly turned to shouts. He looked down from where he sat on a high tree branch as one of his companions came at a run.
The youkai that appeared was one of the two they'd assigned as sentries. He kept looking over his shoulder back the way he came as though expecting something to come after him.
"I'm telling you," said the youkai who had short bat wings behind him and a set of short horns protruding on his forehead. "That thing killed Douyuji like he was nothing but a small kid!" Douyuji was six feet tall and had the bulk of four medium-sized tree trunks lashed together. "Snapped his neck, it did! Only escaped from it myself coz it was too busy eating Douyuji's heart! His heart!"
"And you say it's coming this way?" asked another of Hiei's companions.
Before the frightened bat youkai could answer, a rustle was heard from the direction he came from.
As one, the gathered youkai below Hiei turned towards the sound and not wasting any time readied their weapons, turning their backs on the bonfire and forming a circle around it effectively guarding each other's backs against attack coming from any side. Hiei remained atop the branch watching, but he had already unsheathed his katana.
Tense minutes passed by as they waited for the creature. Hiei could see his companions, especially the bat youkai, start to sweat and shift their feet in impatience and nervousness.
In a land where fighting was a matter of course, where the only rule was that only the strong survived, Hiei always felt an indifferent sense of surprise whenever he saw youkai who'd normally be seen killing each other actually cooperating in a fight. He mentally shrugged. He guessed it all came with having a common enemy. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, was how the ningen saying went. He didn't like the idea of cooperating with anyone, but then he also found himself doing just that during those times in the past when he went on those missions with Yusuke and the rest of the gang.
Hiei shook his head from thoughts of the past. He berated himself for not paying attention to what was happening below. Inattention could mean death in the Makai.
One of those near the bonfire turned to speak to the youkai next to him when the creature finally struck.
It came at them with blinding speed. From where he was crouched, sword at a ready, Hiei could see a blur of white erratically attacking those below. It was more the speed of the creature and the ferocity of its attacks that undid his companions than anything else. In no time, only one of the five who stood near the bonfire was even moving.
Hiei cautiously jumped below to join the fray. He judged the creature possessing at least a half of his best speed. Its main weapons were its hands that resembled hard claws, which efficiently went through the tough skin and armor his companions had. Calling out his black fire, he was about to cast it at the creature when he suddenly stopped, not quite believing his eyes.
Unruly white-gold hair that reached just below the shoulders didn't quite hide the pointed ears atop the creature's head nor quite dull the gleam that came from the large golden eyes that regarded him calmly as he crouched at a wary readiness several yards away. The creature was dressed in clothes that were perceivably made from Ningenkai but that were now in tattered enough condition to let him know that it was female.
If Hiei hadn't discerned the gender, he would have thought that the being that faced him now with no recognition at all in her eyes was the Youko form of his comrade, Kurama.