Me so happy! Oh, one thing before you go on, PLEASE. This story is placed in several points of view, all in first person. When you see the…Name…, that is the name of the character, okay?
I use this technique because I love it. I first learned it from William Faulkner, of all people, from his book, As I Lay Dying. If you've ever read that book, does anyone remember the chapter that reads only: My mother is a fish?
LOL
Disclaimer: I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho or DDR. I do own some of the ideas expressed in this story, including the thing about cat demons.
Chapter 2: Worries and Regrets
Bri
Kurama and I walked back to the house, even though the trolley passed us by twice on the way. It was soothing, just to hear his voice. Even if he was teasing me. He'd beaten me once again at regular DDR. I just couldn't catch up with the slow songs after playing the demonized DDR machine back in the Chronodom. Still, it was nice to try. Nice to think I had a snowball's chance in hell, too.
My body was still slick with sweat from three hours of DDR. I needed a bath. I sighed, thinking about my uncle, aunt, and friend back at Meikou. I wanted to see them, but it was a school day. We all had things to do, and it seemed to me that it was always too much. Kurama's warm arms wrapped around my shoulders.
"You're worrying again," he said. I relaxed into his hold.
"Duh…What's it to you, I'm always worrying about something," I grinned up at Kurama's dancing green eyes. "Now let me go, I need a bath before you hug me."
He nuzzled my sweaty neck, placing a gentle, playful nip near my starting pulse. I tried to stop the smile that spread on my face. Tried to push him away. We reached the front door of the house.
"Shuichi," I said. I poked him in the side. I always had to call him Shuichi when we were in or near his house. "Cut it out, I need a bath. I stink too much for you to hold out very long."
He pouted playfully. "But Bri…"
"But nothin', now lemme go," I shoved myself out of his arms. I contemplated for a minute about getting back into them. My heart was slowing down again. I opened the front door and headed down the stairs. "I need a bath."
"Why's that, you don't smell that bad," Kurama said, sniffing at my hair. We reached the basement. "On second thought, go get one."
I turned around and punched him in the arm. I knew it didn't hurt him, but it felt nice to let go of some of the energy I still had. I wondered often how my energy got to my body, because it does need blood pumping to get it going. I tried not to think about it. I entered my room and pulled out some clean clothes from my dresser.
Kurama followed.
"You're worrying again," Kurama said softly. I sighed and turned back to him, my t-shirt and jeans falling onto the dresser.
"I'm glad you're not like me, Shuichi Minamino," I said. "Otherwise you'd find out some things you really didn't want to know. Yes, I'm still worried. Why wouldn't I be? My heart hasn't started at its normal pace in three years."
"But it does come back more often," he said. "And it will return. Botan said it would take time for you to heal. This is not a simple broken bone, Bri."
I sighed again. "I know. But it's just that…If it weren't for you and Koko, and Keiko and Botan and…everyone…I'm sure I'd be dead by now. And they're still trying to find Tsuki."
"They'll find her, Bri."
"I know. I have faith in Yusuke and Kuwa-kun. But still."
"Yes. Go take your shower, Bri, you're really starting to stink." He laughed and ducked as I swung at him again. "Are you sure you studied karate?"
"Yes, I did." I sniffed indignantly and stalked off into the bathroom. I stalked right back into the room, to his amusement, to grab my clothes.
As I bathed, I couldn't help but remember the super-sexy silver fox demon that Kurama had become when he forgot to close his eyes at the Chronodom light. In a sense, I would be getting both the old Kurama and the new Shuichi. Sometimes, he could transform at will into the old Kurama Youko. Often, I saw the glint of gold in his eyes, the lightening of his hair. His face would become more angular, though it really had done so in the three years I'd known him. His long red hair still twisted my heart. Even just a glance at him could set my heart pounding in my chest.
I lived for those moments.
I survived by those moments.
I sighed to myself. It had been years since my heart had grown sick. I was getting better, I had to admit. But still, I couldn't keep the nightmares away. The nightmares of Matsu and Une and Karasu tearing into my flesh, tearing at my heart. Throwing me into my own misery as thousands of others felt the same and died. I couldn't die. And we never found out how Karasu had come back. Even Sakyo didn't know.
Kurama was the only one who made me want to live. Kurama and Koko. My first friend, the first one who cared about me. I turned off the water and let it drip from my bare flesh. The scars of Matsu and Karasu's bombs still cris-crossed my chest. The lighter skin, healed almost instantaneously.
While others lay dead in the streets. I still felt bad that Koenma didn't have the power to bring them back. Not even the elementary school kids. My heart twisted painfully at the thought again.
My life is so confusing. I paint about it a lot. I write about it in my journal, the pain and suffering and confusion of those ordeals still haunting me. All for the one simple fact that I'd been born in the first place. That Marion Wolf had had the grits, grace, and gall to have an affair with his brother's wife.
Things are complicated for me.
I think I should be grateful that Tsuki let me live for as long as she did. She thought she'd been rid of me. Sometimes, I wished that it were true and that I'd gone on without Koko's love. Without Kurama's love.
And then I'd remember that my heart beat only because of those two people's love. I sighed and stepped out of the shower, completely air-dried from the time I'd simply stood there. I stepped into my clothes and walked out again. Kurama's arms around my shoulders told me they were shaking again.
"Let's go to the garden," he whispered. He listened carefully for Kaasan's movements upstairs, then led me through a portal he had opened himself. I sat underneath the fruiting cherry tree, beside the sleeping rosebushes. Kurama's soothing hand rubbed my shoulders softly, loosening the muscles that I hadn't realized were so tight.
"You can't help what they did to you," he whispered. His breaths tickled my hair, sending goosebumps up and down my arms. "Stop blaming yourself."
"I can't help thinking about it," I said. He stroked my hair softly, calming the raging feline instincts within me to run. I'd run from him once before like this. I had to stop running from my fears. Or they'd haunt me for the rest of my life.
He was silent for several minutes, simply holding me close to him. I could feel his warm breath dancing along my hair, beside his gentle fingers.
"I have regrets, too, Bri," Kurama said quietly. "When Kuronue and I had reached the top of the Makai underground, we set up an area around us that we guarded ferociously. If any male demon were to stumble on it, we'd kill him in an instant. But if they were female…we kept them. They were our servants. I was a heartless—"
"You're not anymore, Kurama," I said. "You're gentle and kind. I'm sure Kuronue would have done the same, had he the same chance as you did."
Kurama smiled sadly. "Yes. He would have. And you have the same chance, Bri. You have reformed your ways. You and I both need to stop thinking about the past. Start believing in the future and the here, and now."
I smiled and snuggled my head deeper into the crook between his neck and chest. I curled my fingers around his. My heart beat gently in my chest, as softly and as almost-unnoticeably as if it had started up again. I knew it would stop after a short while, but I tried to have the faith to know that one day, it wouldn't. It would start up again one day, while I was curled up in Kurama's lap, and it won't stop again.
It won't stop again.
"Kurama…" I yawned softly. "What time is it?"
"Ten till. Why?"
"I have an eight o'clock class tomorrow." He smiled and nuzzled into my hair.
"So do I." He paused for a minute. "Bri…I want to show you something."
I climbed out of his lap and waited for him to lead the way. I figured he wanted to show me one of his plants, though for what purpose, I was baffled. I resisted the urge to turn my powers up. Kurama trusted me. I wasn't going to break that trust by delving into his mind every time I was confused about him.
He led the way through the Earth plants, through the hybrid flowers. The plants were a little more dangerous as we got near the Makai plants, but Kurama knew his garden. I stuck near to him, as he'd instructed me every time we crossed into the Makai section of the garden.
At the far end of the garden, Kurama instructed me in a hushed voice to be as quiet and as slow-moving as possible. Uncertain, I nodded. We treaded over the Makai grass, so similar to normal Earth grass. The blades were straighter and it was a deeper shade of green. I waited for him to point out what he was showing me.
Finally, with a slow motion of his hand, he whispered for me to stop.
He pointed to a regular-looking rosebush, fully in bloom.
I was about to scoff and roll my eyes, but a miniscule shake of his head let me know not to. I blinked at him. He knelt at the bush and slowly pulled a rose from its stem. I did notice that it had more thorns than was usual. He led the way back over into the Earth side of the garden and held the rose up for me to see.
"This is the Makai version of a rose," he said quietly. "As Youko Kurama, I used this rose as the same technique I use today."
I nodded, curious. "But why did we have to be quiet and move slowly?"
"If you make the wrong move or the wrong sound, it releases a poisonous gas from the depths of the bush," he said. "The thorns, should you prick yourself, are deadly poisonous. I can get the poison out with my manipulations, but…"
He sent a little of his energy into the rose, forming his legendary Rose Whip. I'd never seen it like this before, though. It was black and the thorns each pulsed with a reddish light. I stared at it, mesmerized. I could feel the dark energy rolling off of it like poison from a pit viper's fangs.
It turned back into a rose and Kurama dropped it to the ground with a sigh. He stepped on the bloom as hard as he could, smearing the no-longer-potent juices on the Earth grass.
"I don't like to remember how many people died from the poison of that flower at my hands," he said, staring at the crumpled remains.
"Then don't remember," I said. "We'll forget. Both of us."
He smiled.
I doubted either of us would.
…
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Okay…Um…I don't have much else to say to everyone, except thank you for continuing on into the sequel. Let me just say, this story is from several POVs, not just Kurama and Bri's this time. They include Koko, Hiei (aka Snowball), and Youko Kurama. From here on in, Kurama refers to present-day Kurama and Youko refers to thirty-years-ago Kurama.
Suntiger: I believe the term would be Triclops, but it would take a very shrewd-minded character to come up with that. I've called Hiei such nicks as Snowball, Hn-meister, Purple-Eyed-People-Eater, and the Gothic Midget. My friends find it quite amusing, so I decided to use Snowball. Koko is actually based on one of my other characters, a girl named Darkim Dekim, the emerald Guiding. A long story, that one.
Princess Kandra: Believe me, I know the sugar-high syndrome. Mom played a prank on me this morning…locked up all the healthy food (I'm on a health trip right now) and left only the sugary stuff. It was either donuts and Mountain Dew or starve. I hate April Fool's day…
Sillylittlenothing: Bri's reaction is…interesting. I've been looking through the story and I just realized: Shuichi never actually meets Youko. Weird. My uploads will be a little more erratic because of college. I've lost part of my scholarship if I don't get my grades up this semester. I'll have to transfer a year early as is. I hate my life. Vv All I want is to teach English…is that so much to ask?
Sonya: You have no idea, cakes.
SilverDragon: Actually, Koko is a conglomerate character of a lot of people I know, and she's a bit on the weird side of things. I see a lot of myself in her and in Bri, and yet we're so different in how we react to stuff. I'd never curse, even if my life depended on it. I just now got up the nerve to actually type them. Heh. Go me, eh?
Oh, and to the readers who got on the name board list thingie, the numbers just basically tallied up how many times you reviewed. I wanted to know how many people followed the story for however long, and how many people reviewed, rather than how many reviews. I wanted to especially thank the people who helped make it the high quality story that it became. Thank you again, guys, you ROCK!
