Just two questions before I start the chapter: Avalon Brook Clark and
Arikia (I'm not sure if you're the same person), question number one: if
you don't like it, why are you reading it? Do you do this to ALL of the
yaoi fanfiction you happen upon (if so, you must be busy! You'll never
catch them all this way!)? And second of all: JUST how OLD are you?
Because if you're telling me that gay people should be condemned, you
certainly should rethink how you judge and value other people. And the
excuse, "Kurama and Hiei just anime people, I can say what I want about
them" isn't going to work here, because there are real people out there who
have personalities, beliefs and feelings just like the said anime
characters, and if you speak against Kurama and Hiei's here, you're
speaking against those real people in the world as well. And no, I will
not write to you or visit your website. I believe this is sufficient
enough chastisement. Oh, yes, you spelled "lying" wrong. If you're going
to flame me, at least make it look professional.
And to the rest of you, you have encouraged me so much. I cannot possibly tell you how I appreciate it.
Now, before I start a lecture about how homosexuality is NOT wrong, I'll give you the chapter.
Ch.5: The Last One
[You say it's never easy
Then tell me what was]
And so, after I made Yuusuke promise to look after Shiori for me, all that was left was to tell Shiori herself.
I had remained her purely human son after all of these years, her quiet but caring son Shuiichi, and I knew now more than ever that I was doing something that was purely selfish. I was not considering her feelings at all, and the human inside of me was remarkably composed, dry- eyed and resigned. And the youko side of me was as well, and somehow I had never felt as peaceful as I had now.
It was like dying a second time, that bustle of living and constant fear of dying even within the most stouthearted of warriors. Strangely reminiscent of the first time I had died from a hunter's gunshot, staring up at the sky and deciding maybe it would just be better to die instead of heaving my soul back up into the skies of Ningenkai to find another body to possess. And in a way, I WAS dying again - I was leaving Ningenkai now, after seventeen years of learning to live, fighting and crying over this world that I used to think was useless, pathetic. My death as Shuiichi Minamino had come, though I would be taking that human with me all the way to Makai before he finally died.
I could not tell her the truth about my true form as Youko Kurama, even as a parting gift to tell her that her compassion during the childhood of my human life had not been in vain, that the cruel youko inside of me had indeed changed with her quiet teachings of human virtues and values. I could not possibly explain how many times I had worried for her when one remedy did not work, forcing me to try the other fifty that I knew for the common cold and cough, and dreading the descent into the remedies for life- long diseases. Truly, I had brought this upon her, and it had taken me long enough to see what she was trying to tell me - something completely human, something that the demon could not have possibly begun to understand if it hadn't been for the human that began to grow as my second conscience as well. There was something that humans had that demons could not understand unless they had come on pilgrimage here, like me: the human heart.
She would not have understood. So instead I told her simply that I was going to go away for a long time, out of sight and out of contact, and that she should not try to look for me. Immediately she ran into the list of typical maternal worries: if I had been doing something illegal and had to flee the country, if I had ties with undesirable people, advice about how I should go to the police and turn yourself in. All the time she spoke, I could see the slow dawning fear in her eyes - had the cruel five year Shuiichi of old returned? And this trip - would it lead to my eventual death in a place far out of her reach and out of her radius of help, who would I turn to?
The not-youko-not-human inside of me cried and laughed at the same time. No, little mother of my seventeen years past, nothing but Hiei could have wrenched me from you. The five year old that I had been, loving to torture the squirrels and the bugs that I found in the ground, even threatening Shiori with a knife once - that side of me was gone forever, past history. It wasn't that cruelty didn't still run through my youko blood; rather, it was now strictly controlled with the bonds of human morals. But for the second question, I had no answer. Perhaps this chase of Hiei into the wilds of Makai and for this desperate quest to find my own identity - not the cruel Youko Kurama, not the cringing Shuiichi Minamino - the quest to find my own strength as Kurama, a fusion of demon and human. So far I had fought battles in the name of Kurama but had been controlled by either the pure demon or by the pure human sides of me - where did Kurama belong? I needed, more than I needed to find Hiei, to find myself and who Kurama had become.
"Mother, it's not so easy. It's my own personal problem, just a fight with a friend who's gone around the world to make trouble for others. I just feel like I need to set things right with him", I told her, but I had the feeling that the pain in my eyes was seen clearly by her that this was no ordinary fight, and this was no ordinary son. For the longest time, I had seen that suspicion in her thoughts and her dreams that her son, her extraordinary son was more than human - as was the truth. I guarded Youko Kurama from her for the longest time because it was the only part of me that was still completely demon. No, it is not that easy, little mother, to leave you to chase down that person inside of me whose name I know but street address I do not have.
She looked down, a little hurt, but after a little bit she looked back at me. Every line in her face, I felt, was caused by me. Every line I drew into the corners of her eyes, into the dimples of her cheeks, into the growing frailness of her hands and her eyes - this was the woman that had come to love me, the one I finally could bring myself to love back. Always I had felt as if this face was something that I had drawn myself a long time ago, perhaps as a far-off vision of a person that I could someday trust with the innocent child that still remained within me. This was the face that I could love, that I had created with all of my heart, and would carry around with me forever. To see her now with that fear of me, a son who should have been no more than a regular human, both shook me and saddened me. She would never be my little mother again.
I could see her eyes now, that slow suspicion giving way to a sudden revelation. "Yes, I can see this is no ordinary friend." And then she smiled, but her eyes were hollow, clearly still thinking I could not be solved so easily. "Do tell me her name when you finally catch up with her." And then as if that settled everything, she stepped primly into the kitchen to prepare her regular tea. Her body was rigid, a form I had grown so used to seeing firm but loving. There seemed to be angles in her elbows and hips as she walked now, or perhaps that was only because I was seeing her through my tears?
She was telling me without words that until I told her the truth, she would continue to keep this new distance between us. A final ultimatum before I left for wherever I was going. I could not possibly lie to her if I decided to tell her. She was thinking, if this Shuiichi really is my son, my HUMAN son, then he will tell me. But I was not human, a century- old fox demon lived inside of me. I would not tell her.
[Is it never worth the pain?
Could you believe it was?]
To see her now, her eyes full of guarded wariness, her smiles full of cold suspicion - I felt that it was better that I never returned home at all to face her falsities. But I forced myself to see her, to see past her façade and see that she did still love me, that somehow the face before me was still the one that I trusted the most in the world. And it couldn't be said without lying that I returned her coldness with a freezing winter of my own, though the youko inside of me clambered that Shiori needed to be 'taught a lesson'. I could not possibly bring myself to harm her even in these last days before my departure, could not possibly do anything but love her all the more. Though I had not given any select date to leave, I knew that it could not be long. My youko side was not known to be patient.
I forced myself to be completely human in these last days in Ningenkai, focusing solely on school and family, feeling nothing but the purest of humanity come into me. I fed on all the sights and sounds of Ningenkai knowing perhaps tomorrow I would decide to leave. And as the ache of leaving grew heavier in my chest, the pain of leaving became sharp and insistent that I stay. Somewhere inside of me, I clung to that thread of one certainty that I had to leave someday. And all the time, I wondered if I had done one more kind thing when I was younger, would Shiori had accepted now me for not telling her the full truth?
I felt as if I could not have been the more perfect son in all of this time. Every meal I cooked, cleaned and slaved as if it were my last, telling myself constantly that at least I wait until the end of the semester and the beginning of summer vacation to leave, trivial little human things like that. But suddenly it seemed they were humongous, time- consuming activities, taking up all ends of my life, and I felt as if I had truly discovered humanity's love for excitement; they found it in another way, through simply being human.
I knew that when I went to Makai and disappeared from all ends of Ningenkai, my little mother would regret her words. I knew that she did love me and was worried for me even as she tortured me with the pretense that nothing was wrong. I knew that these trials I had, these things that I had given up in my life in Ningenkai would make the discovery of Kurama's identity even sweeter. I knew that when it came right down to it, I was simply afraid that I would give too much up for this mad chase in Makai.
I occupied myself with human tasks, each day hearing the youko in me start to writhe in impatience, and knew the time could not come any sooner. The human side of me clung to Ningenkai's life like a desperate man, as did Kurama. And as my impatience to begone built in me, my pain doubled as well. Perhaps this was the last 'A' I would ever receive on an assignment, perhaps this was the last time I would smile and shake this person's hand, perhaps this was the last meal I would ever make for my little mother. . .
/ / / / / / / / / / / Author's notes:
Grr. Another chapter done. Okay, I need to go to bed now. I'm sorry for all those who had to see that note at the top. . .I was feeling rather vicious at the moment I was reading that review. Still, my views have not changed from the above. Towards the end, I was just going around in circles, sorry if that was a bit boring. If you catch any spelling/grammar mistakes, please tell me. Suggestions for improvement are always loved. Thank you for reading.
Andrea Weiling
And to the rest of you, you have encouraged me so much. I cannot possibly tell you how I appreciate it.
Now, before I start a lecture about how homosexuality is NOT wrong, I'll give you the chapter.
Ch.5: The Last One
[You say it's never easy
Then tell me what was]
And so, after I made Yuusuke promise to look after Shiori for me, all that was left was to tell Shiori herself.
I had remained her purely human son after all of these years, her quiet but caring son Shuiichi, and I knew now more than ever that I was doing something that was purely selfish. I was not considering her feelings at all, and the human inside of me was remarkably composed, dry- eyed and resigned. And the youko side of me was as well, and somehow I had never felt as peaceful as I had now.
It was like dying a second time, that bustle of living and constant fear of dying even within the most stouthearted of warriors. Strangely reminiscent of the first time I had died from a hunter's gunshot, staring up at the sky and deciding maybe it would just be better to die instead of heaving my soul back up into the skies of Ningenkai to find another body to possess. And in a way, I WAS dying again - I was leaving Ningenkai now, after seventeen years of learning to live, fighting and crying over this world that I used to think was useless, pathetic. My death as Shuiichi Minamino had come, though I would be taking that human with me all the way to Makai before he finally died.
I could not tell her the truth about my true form as Youko Kurama, even as a parting gift to tell her that her compassion during the childhood of my human life had not been in vain, that the cruel youko inside of me had indeed changed with her quiet teachings of human virtues and values. I could not possibly explain how many times I had worried for her when one remedy did not work, forcing me to try the other fifty that I knew for the common cold and cough, and dreading the descent into the remedies for life- long diseases. Truly, I had brought this upon her, and it had taken me long enough to see what she was trying to tell me - something completely human, something that the demon could not have possibly begun to understand if it hadn't been for the human that began to grow as my second conscience as well. There was something that humans had that demons could not understand unless they had come on pilgrimage here, like me: the human heart.
She would not have understood. So instead I told her simply that I was going to go away for a long time, out of sight and out of contact, and that she should not try to look for me. Immediately she ran into the list of typical maternal worries: if I had been doing something illegal and had to flee the country, if I had ties with undesirable people, advice about how I should go to the police and turn yourself in. All the time she spoke, I could see the slow dawning fear in her eyes - had the cruel five year Shuiichi of old returned? And this trip - would it lead to my eventual death in a place far out of her reach and out of her radius of help, who would I turn to?
The not-youko-not-human inside of me cried and laughed at the same time. No, little mother of my seventeen years past, nothing but Hiei could have wrenched me from you. The five year old that I had been, loving to torture the squirrels and the bugs that I found in the ground, even threatening Shiori with a knife once - that side of me was gone forever, past history. It wasn't that cruelty didn't still run through my youko blood; rather, it was now strictly controlled with the bonds of human morals. But for the second question, I had no answer. Perhaps this chase of Hiei into the wilds of Makai and for this desperate quest to find my own identity - not the cruel Youko Kurama, not the cringing Shuiichi Minamino - the quest to find my own strength as Kurama, a fusion of demon and human. So far I had fought battles in the name of Kurama but had been controlled by either the pure demon or by the pure human sides of me - where did Kurama belong? I needed, more than I needed to find Hiei, to find myself and who Kurama had become.
"Mother, it's not so easy. It's my own personal problem, just a fight with a friend who's gone around the world to make trouble for others. I just feel like I need to set things right with him", I told her, but I had the feeling that the pain in my eyes was seen clearly by her that this was no ordinary fight, and this was no ordinary son. For the longest time, I had seen that suspicion in her thoughts and her dreams that her son, her extraordinary son was more than human - as was the truth. I guarded Youko Kurama from her for the longest time because it was the only part of me that was still completely demon. No, it is not that easy, little mother, to leave you to chase down that person inside of me whose name I know but street address I do not have.
She looked down, a little hurt, but after a little bit she looked back at me. Every line in her face, I felt, was caused by me. Every line I drew into the corners of her eyes, into the dimples of her cheeks, into the growing frailness of her hands and her eyes - this was the woman that had come to love me, the one I finally could bring myself to love back. Always I had felt as if this face was something that I had drawn myself a long time ago, perhaps as a far-off vision of a person that I could someday trust with the innocent child that still remained within me. This was the face that I could love, that I had created with all of my heart, and would carry around with me forever. To see her now with that fear of me, a son who should have been no more than a regular human, both shook me and saddened me. She would never be my little mother again.
I could see her eyes now, that slow suspicion giving way to a sudden revelation. "Yes, I can see this is no ordinary friend." And then she smiled, but her eyes were hollow, clearly still thinking I could not be solved so easily. "Do tell me her name when you finally catch up with her." And then as if that settled everything, she stepped primly into the kitchen to prepare her regular tea. Her body was rigid, a form I had grown so used to seeing firm but loving. There seemed to be angles in her elbows and hips as she walked now, or perhaps that was only because I was seeing her through my tears?
She was telling me without words that until I told her the truth, she would continue to keep this new distance between us. A final ultimatum before I left for wherever I was going. I could not possibly lie to her if I decided to tell her. She was thinking, if this Shuiichi really is my son, my HUMAN son, then he will tell me. But I was not human, a century- old fox demon lived inside of me. I would not tell her.
[Is it never worth the pain?
Could you believe it was?]
To see her now, her eyes full of guarded wariness, her smiles full of cold suspicion - I felt that it was better that I never returned home at all to face her falsities. But I forced myself to see her, to see past her façade and see that she did still love me, that somehow the face before me was still the one that I trusted the most in the world. And it couldn't be said without lying that I returned her coldness with a freezing winter of my own, though the youko inside of me clambered that Shiori needed to be 'taught a lesson'. I could not possibly bring myself to harm her even in these last days before my departure, could not possibly do anything but love her all the more. Though I had not given any select date to leave, I knew that it could not be long. My youko side was not known to be patient.
I forced myself to be completely human in these last days in Ningenkai, focusing solely on school and family, feeling nothing but the purest of humanity come into me. I fed on all the sights and sounds of Ningenkai knowing perhaps tomorrow I would decide to leave. And as the ache of leaving grew heavier in my chest, the pain of leaving became sharp and insistent that I stay. Somewhere inside of me, I clung to that thread of one certainty that I had to leave someday. And all the time, I wondered if I had done one more kind thing when I was younger, would Shiori had accepted now me for not telling her the full truth?
I felt as if I could not have been the more perfect son in all of this time. Every meal I cooked, cleaned and slaved as if it were my last, telling myself constantly that at least I wait until the end of the semester and the beginning of summer vacation to leave, trivial little human things like that. But suddenly it seemed they were humongous, time- consuming activities, taking up all ends of my life, and I felt as if I had truly discovered humanity's love for excitement; they found it in another way, through simply being human.
I knew that when I went to Makai and disappeared from all ends of Ningenkai, my little mother would regret her words. I knew that she did love me and was worried for me even as she tortured me with the pretense that nothing was wrong. I knew that these trials I had, these things that I had given up in my life in Ningenkai would make the discovery of Kurama's identity even sweeter. I knew that when it came right down to it, I was simply afraid that I would give too much up for this mad chase in Makai.
I occupied myself with human tasks, each day hearing the youko in me start to writhe in impatience, and knew the time could not come any sooner. The human side of me clung to Ningenkai's life like a desperate man, as did Kurama. And as my impatience to begone built in me, my pain doubled as well. Perhaps this was the last 'A' I would ever receive on an assignment, perhaps this was the last time I would smile and shake this person's hand, perhaps this was the last meal I would ever make for my little mother. . .
/ / / / / / / / / / / Author's notes:
Grr. Another chapter done. Okay, I need to go to bed now. I'm sorry for all those who had to see that note at the top. . .I was feeling rather vicious at the moment I was reading that review. Still, my views have not changed from the above. Towards the end, I was just going around in circles, sorry if that was a bit boring. If you catch any spelling/grammar mistakes, please tell me. Suggestions for improvement are always loved. Thank you for reading.
Andrea Weiling