Chapter one:
Silently, staring at the starry blackened sky, his cloak billowing in the quiet strong blowing wind, as did his pitch black spiky hair, he waited—waited for what he didn't know, but there was some reason to wait—there was always a reason to wait. And wait he did, years had past since he first felt compelled by some invisible force calling to him to stand in wait, his own personal quests always pulling him away from that force during the day, but each night it pulled strong on him and so he'd wait. Before the force compelled him into an obsession—as though every nerve and sinew within him boiled with the desire to wait, but now it was merely habit—a long run, worn out habit nothing more and nothing less.
"Meaningless." He whispered voicing the conscious thought into the night, red eyes glaring neutrally at the sky closing once as he focused his attention on other things—these nighttime waits never lasted more than five minutes anymore.
"So what is it that you wait for?" A curious voice asked a few feet behind him—surprising him only with the precise words spoken, not by its presence, which he had sensed for the past minute.
"Waiting? I'm not waiting for anything."
"Not waiting? So what were you doing just gazing into the distance with no reason whatsoever? That's not like you, Hiei." The voice chuckled while green eyes gazed at the short stature fire-demon standing silent, growling at him, eyes narrowed. "No need to bristle or get defensive, Hiei, though you were gone for the longest time in the demon realm."
"Did you miss me, fox?" Hiei stared intently into those green eyes not flickering once even though he wished to gaze at the soft, red hair of their owner. "Well?"
"Hiei, you've been gone three years." Was the reply, simple but not answering the question, which Hiei needed answered, the look in his eyes told the green eyed, red haired demon so. "Yes, I have missed you, we all have."
"But you didn't wait."
"I did wait, but it's been three years, nothing stays the same even though you may wish it would." Kurama whispered, shifting his gaze to the sky, sighing deeply, his eyes slightly glistening in the moonlight. "Nothing ever stays the same. Nothing."
"Hn." Hiei turned his gaze from Kurama's eyes and face to his hair, which used to fall elegantly past his shoulders as graceful as the fox-demon's fighting style. "You shouldn't have cut your hair."
"Um? Yes, I look different, don't I? But I couldn't keep it that long forever—not with the life I'm living now."
"Have to look decent, don't cha? Little future med student."
"Maybe you should think about the future yourself—instead of waiting in these mountains forever you could make a new life for yourself with someone new to share it with." Kurama responded, trying to catch Hiei's eye again, but the fire-demon ignored his efforts. "You should find someone new, instead of waiting for what can't be."
"Like you did." Hiei responded, barely waiting for Kurama to finish his sentence, quiet annoyance in his tone.
"Yes."
"I don't need your advice, fox." Hiei seethed in his antisocial, annoyed way, not moving a muscle as he stared into the distance, deep in thought.
"Hiei…."
"It could've been different, fox."
"Yes, it could have."
"Why didn't you keep waiting? Did it get too boring? Too long?" Hiei asked closing his eyes again, speaking as though he had memorized and rehearsed lines for a play. "Or did your life, your precious future, displace me? Had to please that human family of yours, right? Had to be the perfect son no matter the cost, regardless of the fact you'd not be the only one paying, right?"
"Hiei…." Kurama began, hearing the undertone of bitterness in the fire-demon's voice.
"Hn. It's fine, fox. Go make your new life with her, go and forget everything in order to have your future. I won't bother you."
"Hiei, it's been three years." Kurama muttered stepping closer to the fire-demon, trying still to catch his eye but he'd gone, speeding away into the deep night. "Three years…damn it Hiei, three years!" Kurama growled into the silence, tears filling his eyes—tears he would never let fall—not again.
Clasping his hand to his left wrist, shaking as he held the tears at bay, Kurama leaned against a nearby oak tree, moving his sleeve and hand so he could study his wrist, tracing the scars with his eyes, his vision blurring.
Three years, that was how long Hiei had been gone, three years of intense longing with loneliness breeding from that unsatisfied desire, from a union unsanctioned, un-vouched for even by word. During his deepest depressions, Kurama felt that Hiei had meant no deep meaning to their relationship—he felt as though Hiei deliberately stood away as though to tell him he didn't care. Living through those dark hours of hell, believing that Hiei was doing to him what he confessed he did to others—using them until satisfied, then abandoning them without a word. Oh, how it haunted Kurama, knowing that Hiei could easily silence any such relationship into ruin by just portraying his usual demeanor and habits—oh, how quickly Hiei professed to being easily able to forget any passion, any desire for another faster than a heartbeat. Those dark hours of fear slowly dissipated any desperate hope he had of being Hiei's mate—the meager insurances he made for himself could not curb the doubt surfacing in his mind.
However, the first two times with the blade only worsened his condition since he still held that want-ful longing in his heart. That need still radiated in him, like a cancer seeping throughout his body after the second time—but the third time was what did it. The third, final time he brought the blade to his wrist released Hiei's hold on him, that third occasion brought him his closest to death since that day he incarnated into an unborn human child.
Seeing all of his loved ones faces as they rushed him to the emergency room shook him out of his blind and selfish depression—his mother, stepfather and everyone else cared about him so deeply, visiting him everyday in the hospital and talking to him in comforting deeper ways than ever before—everyone except Hiei. Even his half-brother, barely two years old, worried and visited him more than his lover, wondering why he couldn't come home and play with him anymore. That small question, the worry in his mother's eyes and the support of his friends and family touched him so deeply that he realized be shouldn't let thoughts of Hiei's abandonment rule him into forgetting his life.
However he stood in the hospital for five months unable to deal with his realization about Hiei, five full months of his life he lost in trying to hold onto a distant, unwelcoming lover who hadn't the decency to tell him the straightforward truth.
"Damn you, Hiei! All those times you could've came back, all those times you could've sent some word, some clue as to what you felt, and you wait until now? I'd give up anything for you Hiei, I'd give anything to have things as they used to be, but, damn it, I can't give up my life now, I can't…I can't stand having to go through that again." Kurama shouted into the silent night, tears spilling from his eyes and down his cheeks then onto the grass below. "I can't stand thinking you don't care." He muttered, whimpering as he made his way back to Genkai's, drying his eyes all of the way to the temple, shivering in the wind.
Meanwhile, standing on his common perch, a tree branch in a large maple tree, Hiei stared as the fox-demon staggered back to Genkai's temple, hurt deeply by Kurama's words as though he too had been cut. Those scars on his fox's wrist, he would never mention them, would never ask why—he knew why, but be couldn't bring himself to listen to those words. He wouldn't admit it out loud that he'd hurt his fox so much, but he felt it within his soul. Oh, how he wished he could express what he felt to the fox, he wished his own pride and judgment didn't block him from telling Kurama how he truly felt.
"Stupid fox, why didn't you just come for me? If you wanted me, why didn't you pursue me like you did to so many of your mates before me?" Hiei muttered, barely audible in the silence as he watched Kurama disappear into the distance, wanting to, but unable to follow him due to his own, untold hurt. "I was waiting for you to come to me, why didn't you care enough to find me? I'm always waiting." Shifting his gaze away from where his fox headed, Hiei stared into the sky again, breathing slowly, keeping all of his emotions locked away inside as he began his wait again, hoping against hope that he didn't have long to wait, but knowing that he'll be waiting forever, in silence, alone.