Flora, Fauna, and Kites

by the Rurouni Idoru

Rurouni's note: This is probably going to be a two or three parter. It was inspired by the song "White Kite Fauna" by K's Choice. What does this prove? Well, besides the fact that K's Chocie is brilliant, it tells me that I listen to way too much K's Choice.

Disclaimer: I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho, I don't own Kurama, and I wish I owned K's Choice. But I do own Fujita. And I'm glad for that.

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Do you want to know a secret about my past? In my younger days, back when I was revered and feared as a thief, I was more emotional than one might think. I was even moved to tears on several occasions, and I'm sure if you heard the tales today, you might cock an eyebrow at me, and wonder if you were still talking to the great Youko Kurama. But it's true. Oh, of course it was never in front of anyone, and if it was, they're certainly not alive to testify to it anymore. But I have cried. And more than that, I've cried for people. Of course, I got fairly teary when Kireihana died. She was, after all, my first partner, and the first person I had felt I could trust since my childhood. But about that childhood.... Well, perhaps you think you know me well. One of my many fans, who say they know all there is to know about me. But if you said that, you would be very wrong.

It may surprise you to hear about my childhood. And it would probably surprise you even more to know that as a child, I was sweet and well-behaved. After all, if I were such a good, model child, how did I become the ruthless bandit I was? At that remark, I laugh. I know what I've been through. I think now that I was just attention-starved. Kireihana would most likely agree with me. Maybe that was why we ended up growing so close, we were both spotlight hogs, no matter what transparent excuses we used. She was so like me in that manner. She could see through me, and I could see through her. Just like I could see through him, even as a child....

I was actually raised in a big Youko family, the middle child of five. I had three sisters; Chihiro, the youngest, Midori, the second youngest, and Kuri, who was older than me, but not the oldest of the group. That title belonged to my brother, Fujita. Fujita was...the only word that could ever fit is "amazing." Perhaps that's because I knew him only as a child, and he meant the world to me then. Why? Well, because my father had left my mother after she became impregnated with Chihiro, and I was very young at that time. I have fuzzy memories of him, but they're very old. It's as if my memories of childhood are movies stored in reels in my mind. Most of the reels involving my father are missing or worn out from age. His abandonment of us made my mother very bitter, and she focused mostly on my sisters, and ignored Fujita and myself. I could have singlehandedly saved the family from some sort of plague, while Fujita created world peace, and she would probably say we should take a page from Kuri's book. No matter what we did, we were never good enough for her, because we were male, just like the hurtful Youko who had left her for reasons I cannot remember.

After Father left, Mother moved us to go live with her sisters, so they could all help each other raise the children. This, of course, made me matter even less to her, because Mother was busy taking care of little cousins, and gossiping with aunts. The only males she encountered there were children, because two of her sisters' mates had died, and her other sister had a reputation for being...loose. Mother tended to leave the little boys to her other sisters. Males, I once heard her say to her sister, made her nauseous. The male cousins tended to stay away from us, few as they were, so Fujita and I were on our own. Although, between us, I liked it that way. I thought Fujita was some sort of diety or something. He was the closest thing to a male role model I had ever had, and I looked up to him in ways you wouldn't believe.

He was quite handsome, I remember that well. Even today, should a girl compliment me on my looks, or swoon and giggle in my presence, there's still that critic inside me. That tiny little voice that says to me, "Oh, please. I'm nothing compared to Fujita." The females loved him. And he loved them back. But, being the wonder-brother that he was, I always came before the girls. We were peas in a pod. In our later escapades together, I began to think that we could be a real threat to the ladies, the way we stuck together. And yet, another part of me was jealous. As if I didn't stand a chance next to him. But of course, that was one of the thing I shot for in my later years. I tried to be as charming, and as pleasing to the eye as he was. That critical part of me still thinks I failed, but I have been told otherwise. Of course, those who said there was no one better than I, they had never seen Fujita.

But, jealous as I sometimes was, at that point in my life, no one had been closer to me. He was better to me than anyone. Which is why it stung so much that day. I can still picture it vividly in my mind. It still hurts to think about what happened.

When I was young, about the equivalent of an eight-year old human, we went out to go fly a paper kite. It was sturdy, simple, and perfect. His size and maturity were about that of a twelve-year-old human boy, and so, we went out together, children. I clearly remember, our cousin Michiru stuck her spoiled nose into our business. You see, everyone treated her like an angel, and she behaved like a princess for it. She was treated well for being so cute, of course. She was roughly my age, but I was just a bit older. Granted, she didn't show that that was the case, because she acted like all were inferior to her.

"What are you two doing? Flying a kite? Please. How old are you?" I, being the unrefined little child I was at the time, made a sort of pouty face and prepared to tell her that girls were icky. Fujita, however, had a leg up on my idea.

"Well, we're older than you, so you really shouldn't be worrying." I grinned wildly as my hero put his arm around me and led me back into the direction of our journey. Thankfully for me, Michiru didn't hold our childhood squabbles against me many years later, when we were both theives who could use partners. Her distraction and defense were superb. The amount of times her hypnotic powers got us out of trouble rivals the number of times Kireihana's smooth-talking skills did the same. But I digress. Fujita and I headed into a clearing, quite a walk away from home. All that was in the area with us was an old well, that had obviously been unused for a very long time.

"Fujita-niisan?" I smiled up brightly at him, clutching the kite in my arms.

"Yeah, Kurama?" He gave me that beneolent grin, that grin that told me he'd protect me for the rest of his life. I felt so safe when he grinned at me that way.

"I'm really glad you like to do these things with me. Kuri would never wanna go fly a kite with me." His grin turned slightly mischevious.

"Well, that's 'cause Kuri has the cooties. She knows we're much better than her, so she doesn't want to hang around us. She knows she'll give us her cooties and then we'll be lame like she is." I laughed, as if there were never anything funnier said.

"You're neat, Fujita-niisan." He chuckled.

"Thanks." He gazed off ino the distance, and then acknowledged the kite. "You should start unrolling that string. There's a good wind coming." I nodded energetically, and the fun began.

Of course, this story wouldn't be the tale of how I became a ruthless thief if something terrible didn't happen. It grew dark far too soon. That was alright, our mother didn't care how late we stayed out. She had the girls to tend to, she had no reason to be bothered with us. But it was when the kite plummeted out of the sky and into the well that things went wrong. I shouted in childish grief as it zoomed into the well.

"Come back! Come back!" I ran after it, but once it got to the well, I realized it was a lost cause.

"Ah, don't worry. We can just make a new--" He didn't finish the sentence. Because the kite was coming back out of the well. A lizard-like youkai slithered out of the well, kite in hand.

"You know..." he began, slowly, frighteningly high-pitched, "I could accept it when you little kits played around our territory. I could accept it when you even stayed after dark, when we come out. But now, you drop your dumb little toy into what is practically my bed? Do you know what we do to little kits who play around too much and disturb our territory?" I trembled. I could tell by his heavy breathing that Fujita was scared too. But Fujita showed courage that I had never seen.

"What do you mean by 'we?' I only see one of you." The lizard smiled wickedly.

"Oh, do you, child?" I tried to scream, but I couldn't even make the sound. More and more lizards crawled out from behind bushes and trees. They all began licking their lips and looking at us in the same way I would later look at precious metals and gems. They were hungry.

"Oh...my...Inari-sama...." Fujita wrapped his arms around me. Tears began to stream down my face. I began to whimper helplessly. I buried my face in his chest.

"We'll make a deal with you, kits." The lizard in the well continued to horrify me. "If you can get back your little kite," He tossed it directly into a tree, "then we'll kill you before we eat you, quick and painless. If you can even manage to get away, we won't come to your den and eat your mother, too. But if we can catch you, kite-free, we'll eat you raw." There was a gratutious pause and the other lizards all agreed that this was the proper thing to do. "We'll give you a five-second head start. Five..." Fujita picked me up and ran faster than I knew he could. His footsteps pounded against the ground, and his breathing was frantic. But all I could do was continue counting down like the lizards, my head wrapped up in his arms and torso and my eyes squeezed shut. Four....

I felt him weave in and out, between trees, jumping over fallen logs, and wheezing as he carried me. Three....

"We're gonna be okay, alright, Kurama? We'll be home soon, and then we'll be fine." I nodded and sobbed. Two....

"I don't want them to eat me, oniisan...." One...

"They won't." Zero.

The lizards were coming after us. Fujita ran faster than he had been before, his breathing beginning to strain. He removed one arm from around my tiny body to aim it over his shoulder.

"Kitsune-bi!" I heard some leaves and twigs catch fire on the ground. "That oughta hold 'em off...for at least a moment or two...." He continued running like I'm sure he never had before. He continued setting small fires periodically. I continued crying. We heard the lizards struggling with the burning fodder behind us. But I know that he never looked back. My pointed ears were brushing his chin, and I would have felt it if he looked back. But he was intent on getting us home. And do you know the amazing part? He did it. He got us there. He somehow managed to shake the lizards. We got back to the den. He put me down gently, and fell over, tears in his eyes. Fujita clutched his side, and fell unconscious. No one would help us but Kuri, who ran down to the nearby stream to soak a piece of cloth and put it on his forehead. And she held me while I cried for him.

So, you may be wondering, how did this experience turn me into a ruthless thief? Well, had it been alone, it would not have ruined my life so. But this was not a stand-alone incident. Something else, many years later, was what turned this day memorable.