Things carried on normally for the next two months with Kurama forcing himself to worry more about exams than Hiei—he didn't want to, but his mother worried quietly about him lately and he wanted to assure her he was fine. So he focused on school work and such, rather than Hiei during the day, and at night he took a sedative derived from his demonic plants to relax him into sleep—a dreamless, deep sleep, sometimes refreshing but most times not. Often, even though he willed himself not to, thoughts of suicide pushed themselves to the forefront of his thoughts, blocking out every other thought or idea so he couldn't concentrate well on school work. However, except for a few lapses, Kurama still received perfect grades and so no one at school took much notice that anything was awry—Kurama was highly grateful, but sometimes he wished someone would've noticed.
Another month went by without any relapse into the actual attempting to kill himself, but his weak resolution failed him during the fourth month. On a clear, blue skied day—a Wednesday, Kurama remembered because he had a botany club meeting scheduled for after school that day, Kurama sat in a bathroom cubicle thinking about Hiei even though he tried hard not to. Why hadn't the fire-demon gotten in touch with him yet? Did Hiei even care about him? Did it matter at all if he did or didn't? Oh, god, why must he be tortured like this? He couldn't keep living day to day like this, as though life was an endless tunnel with no end in sight, and with no way to tell whether you headed in the right direction.
Time crawled slowly with no end in sight, painfully ticking every second that reminded Kurama of how long Hiei had been away—why must he continue to endure such suffering?
He didn't, Kurama realized, all he had to do to end his pain was to end his life, and that would be simple enough. Melancholy and alone, Kurama clutched in his hand a pair of small scissors used for trimming the branches of the plants used in his botany club—he had snuck them out of the green house used to house the plants—the blades were razor sharp, shiny metal, small but efficient for the task.
Not realizing he had brought the blade of the opened scissors to his wrist, Kurama tightened his grip on the trimmers, pressing down on his skin before he knew what he was doing. Not until he saw the blood did he realize what he had done, a silent terror whelming through him along with a quiet relief—he could make his quietus now, alone in the bathroom stall, emotionally devoid. Detach-ly thinking about the one line of Shakespeare's play Hamlet during hamlet's soliloquy that death ends 'the heartache…that flesh is heir to," and was a "consummation devoutly to be wished,"—Kurama heart-fully believed that now, and studied his wounded wrist quietly hopeful, welcoming death.
But—should he really die now, here in this bathroom cubicle? What if by chance Hiei returned tomorrow and Kurama was dead, killed by the fox-demon's own hand, what would Hiei think and feel? Could fate be that ironic? Yes it could, and possibly would be so.
"What have I…?" Kurama whispered, applying pressure to the vein in his wounded arm to slow the bleeding while he tried to think of what to do. No one else was in the bathroom, so he could leave the stall without worry—but what if someone showed up and saw his wrist? What would they do, and what would they think? Him, the smartest and most popular guy in school, slicing his wrist in a school bathroom in the middle of a school day—how would he explain that to any passerby? For all of his intelligence, he wouldn't be able to—he doubted if he'd even try, but should he just wait for someone to find him?
No, that would be the most horrible sight for anyone to come across, and Kurama did not wish to cause anyone else grief—he felt terrible enough without adding that guilt to his conscience. So, opening the bathroom stall door, trying hard not to leave any blood on the handle, Kurama went to the sink and put his wrist under the facet, running the cool water over it while his other arm searched through his pocket for the handkerchief one of the girls gave him earlier that day. Finding it, his cut wrist now numb from the cold water, still bleeding freely but slower—so he hadn't cut deep enough to bleed to death, but deep enough to appear as though he had—and then he wrapped and tied the handkerchief around his wrist making sure to apply it with enough pressure to slow the bleeding down even more—he wasn't taking chances.
Blood began staining the handkerchief as soon as it touched his wrist, turning the white, soft fabric damp and red—the cotton material was so absorbent, Kurama figured that he'd have to buy the girl a new one if ever she wanted it back. Absentmindedly curious, Kurama glanced at the name embroidered at the corner of the handkerchief—Akiko Kamigawa, a girl in his same grade, but who had a different homeroom. He would have to thank her later, Kurama guessed, since without her handkerchief he would've had a harder time of this.
Akiko—that name intrigued Kurama's curiosity, the first part of her first name was written in hiragana (The 'Aki' part) while the 'ko' was written with the usually kanji put at the end of girls names. Did the 'aki' stand for autumn? Kurama supposed autumn sounded best compare to the other translations he could think of, it was a nice, quiet name, and went well with the last name—Kamigawa, roughly translated to river god. So the name could mean autumn river god—a beautiful sounding name, better, at least, than his demon name Kurama, which was written using the kanji for storehouse and horse. Oh, he wished he could've chosen different kanji for his demon name, his human name was okay. Though maybe if he had a different name than 'Shuuichi,' written using the kanji for outstanding and one (roughly translated as outstanding one), he wouldn't be so intent on being the perfect student—it had seemed his parents' wish for him to be successful and so he put his energy into being so. His last name Minamino, southern field (literally south field) was all right, though without the kanji of his last name his name could mean outstanding one of the south—interesting, he never though so much about his names before. Funny how the thought came to him now, of all times—was he unconsciously trying to figure out who he really was?
Strange how times of adversity caused people to think about things they normally wouldn't, to think he's standing at a bathroom sink thinking about names while his flimsy bandaged wrist bled—was his mind trying to distract him or was he just going crazy? On could only wonder….
"Um…Shuuichi? Are you okay?" A voice from behind him interrupted his thoughts, and Kurama quickly went to hide his wrist with his uniform's jacket but the person who spoke grabbed his arm. "Class began ten minutes ago, Shuuichi, the practice exam, remember?" The person, Kaito, spoke not noticing the blood at first since the uniform's color was a derivative of red—violet, but then…. "Shuuichi…what…blood?"
"It's none of your concern, Kaito, I'm fine." Kurama replied, abrupt and harsh, pulling his left arm from the boy's grasp, but then felt a wave of dizziness swarm through him. Swaying a little, barely noticeable, but Kaito caught it, Kurama steadied himself with the edge of the sink, his face pale but stoic—had he been mistaken about the wound being not deep enough? No, he was sure it wasn't—it would've had to have been much deeper to kill his demonic human body, and all the medicine he had earlier was the two aspirin for a headache—just two, or maybe it was four. Yes it must've been four—unless, did he take more? Maybe, he couldn't remember, but his stomach was upset now—oh, he remembered, he remembered, he took only a total of four aspirin, but he'd taken something else too—what was it? Oh, yeah, it was a mild sedative—derived from the one he'd been using as a sleep agent. Demon world derived—maybe those two medicines shouldn't be mixed.
"Shuuichi? What's wrong? You're not all right, I'm getting the nurse." Kaito spoke, disturbing Kurama's thoughts again, worriedly split as to whether to stay with Kurama or leave him alone to get help.
No, Kaito, just help me to the greenhouse, I took a demon plant sedative this morning, forgot, and then took some aspirin—apparently those mustn't be mixed. I can whip up an antidote if you bring me to the school green house."
"But your arm—the blood."
"That's not any of your concern!" Kurama snapped, and then checked himself. "I mean…it's just a wound I got from a recent encounter with a demon, I haven't been to Genkai's yet and it must've reopened." He lied coolly, revealing nothing to the boy—the last thing he needed was for Kaito to find out about his suicide attempt, he was bound to tell a teacher or somebody, maybe even smart enough to inform Genkai, and Kurama didn't want anyone to know.
"You sure? Shouldn't you see the nurse? Or should I help you to Master Genkai's?"
"Just to the greenhouse will be fine—then I'll go to the nurse's office alone." Or maybe I should ditch altogether—so unlike me, but….
"Okay, Shuuichi, but getting to the greenhouse unnoticed will be something." Kaito replied, but said nothing more while he helped Kurama walk to the school greenhouse—luckily no one caught them, and Kurama whipped up a concoction that settled his stomach and got rid of his dizziness. And while Kaito wasn't looking, Kurama placed an ointment on his sliced wrist, and re-bandaged it with a piece of clothe he found in a tool drawer in the greenhouse, putting the soiled handkerchief in his pants pocket. After he was all set, Kurama headed to the nurse's office, Kaito following him so the boy could have an alibi for ditching class.
At the health office Kurama explained to the nurse about feeling a bit ill, and made up some symptoms—wishing silently that Kaito hadn't insisted on accompanying him to the health office, he would've just ditched even though it'd be his first time. Luckily the nurse believed him and didn't press many questions, assuming Kurama's illness was caused by stress( Kurama kept her from seeing his left wrist) after all, Kurama had talked to a councilor about applying for early graduation—he had already passed practice college entrance exams to some of the most prestigious schools with flying colors—all he needed, besides completing a real entrance exam, was a declaration of graduation signed by the school principal and then he'd be gone from this school.
While Kurama rested in the school clinic, the nurse sent Kaito back to class, writing a note to explain his tardiness so the boy wouldn't get into trouble, and then telling Kurama she was going to call his family, in case it wasn't just stress. Kurama hated that the nurse called, but figured that he could make a strong alibi that left out any guilt on his part. Somehow it did relieve him to be away from class for the day—at least away from the people, he still did some of the work that Kaito brought to him during the breaks between classes, glad that Kaito hadn't gotten into trouble because of him.
"You should've seen the girls' faces when I told the teacher you've taken ill, they wanted to ditch class and see you, but I made it seem that you needed a peaceful rest. So, besides the nurse, I'm the only one allowed to visit you until your parents pick you up." Kaito spoke cheerfully during one of his visits during break; Kurama's mother wouldn't arrive at school until around lunchtime, two classes away, two breaks.
"So what's the homework assignment for our English Literature class?"
"To analyze ten to twenty poems by various non-Japanese authors. Here's a copy of it—due by Friday, and on Monday we're to recite a poem of our choosing—in English and Japanese."
"Sounds challenging."
"Only for the lower ranking students—or those who're shy, but neither of us are either, so it should be no problem."
"How much you want to bet that those who do the assignment right will mostly use poems by Poe?"
"1000 yen that "The Raven" will be the most used poem."
"And a 1000 yen says it'll be a poem by Poe other than "The Raven"."
"No, you must pick a specific one."
"Okay, how 'bout "Annabel Lee"."
"You're one." Kaito replied, and then went to head back to class, glancing once at Kurama in a hesitant way. "Um…Shuuichi? I…."
"Hm?"
"Never mind, see you!" Kaito replied leaving the room to head back to class, leaving Kurama in solitude thinking about what the boy had wanted to say to him.
Chapter two done, whatcha think? I wrote down the kanji of Kurama's human and demon names and looked up the meaning of each kanji so each separate meaning is accurate, but I wasn't sure exactly how to put the meaning of each kanji together so I went with what sounded best. Anyway, please review! (There will be at least a total of six chapters to this story).