I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho

Botan looked at the ruined garden Hiei had pointed out to her. It was a mess but she could see that it had once been a beautiful place. The remnants of Makai flowers and vegetables, plus plants that she had cultivated as Jenna such as Old sweet peas, mint leaves, radishes and sunflowers were all over the place.
She couldn't pull her gaze away from the ruined beauty in front of her. While Botan was looking at his friend's garden, Hiei was remembering the girl who had lived there.
=============================================================== The group of bandits was tired and hungry, the three eyed boy in the back most of all. "How long has it been since I got this eye put in? More than a month that's for sure. I thought my energy would be back by now. (For the story's sake, Hiei had his jagan implanted when he was the demon equivalent of a four year old. I would say that in maturity at the time of the story he would be around fifteen) his energy was totally drained but Hiei knew that if he didn't keep walking along he would be abandoned and die in the cold for sure. (It would have taken him quite some time to built up invulnerability to the cold)
Luck was with the group of demon bandits, a seemingly human girl appeared in front of them. Come, she beckoned; I have plenty of food for you in my garden.
After his belly was satisfied, Hiei strayed out to the garden.

He saw that the girl from earlier was tending her garden. He had never seen a garden before but it seemed to be a nice place and the girl seemed to love it. Indeed she seemed so engrossed that he was startled when she spoke to him.

"Do you like it, boy?" The girl seemed friendly enough.

"Yes, my name is Hiei"

"Paulita"

And thus began a close friendship that lasted until the girl was killed two(demon equivilant) years later. As Hiei had heard that she was killed for being friends with a forbidden one, he refused to get close to anyone again. The attraction he felt to Botan frightened him to no end for the fact that he did not want to hurt her.
-------------- --------------------------- ================================ He was shaken out of his memory's by the foresaid ferry girl.

"Sunflowers? In a frozen wasteland?" Botan didn't realize she had spoken out loud until Hiei answered.

"They grew in abundance when Paulita was alive. She was a practical girl most of the time but refused to give up on her sunflowers. She taught me the charm she used to keep it sunny but I never was as good as her.

"So that's how you kept the woods sunny before Yusuke fought Goki. This girl, Paulita, taught you the spell.
"Yes", hiei's face filled with guilt. "She told me when they took her that I should use it to keep her garden and the river alive, instead the spell she taught me nearly caused Yusuke's death.

"What about the river?" Botan asked him. "Was that you or Paulita?"

"I managed to keep that from freezing over although I can't undo things that have already frozen."

Hiei tensed before deciding to go on.
"And Botan, they would have hidden the artifact down the river, no one can dig through anywhere else here."

Hiei stopped talking and just hung his head over. He really didn't want to destroy all that was left of his first friend's home, but could see no alternative. He lost control of his emotions and began to cry.

Botan had never seen Hiei so emotional before, and she gathered his tear gems up right away. She knew that the others would find them soon, so she slapped his face and caused his mask to go up again. She couldn't explain why the urge to kiss him was so strong. ================================================================== About the kiss, everyone thinks that what's going on between Hiei and Botan is just a crush, including her at this point. Yusuke and Hiei know his feelings, they saw him watch over her at the end of my last story. So that would be real love.