Yu Yu Hakusho Inversed
Chapter 18
October 1, 2005
"Mr. Yomi, what are your thoughts of the police discovering where Hiei Jaganshi was incapacitated until just recently?"
"Well, Koto... to be truthful, I think that if the police had heeded my suggestion in the first place to investigate the downtown Makai District- especially after the attack on my home by a gang member of that neighborhood- they might have rescued my business partner and the three witnesses, rather than just discovering where the Youkai have kept them. Further more, I've decided that this city's law enforcement is composed primarily of belligerent half-wits too cowardly to do their jobs, and if I were the family of any of the three children involved, I would most certainly be filing a lawsuit against the city right about now."
"Turn that off," growled the Lieutenant. Detective Koenma hurried to comply. "What the hell were you thinking, Sir, when you gave that interview?"
Yomi, though he could not see the Lieutenant, envisioned a man with a rage-purpled face and throbbing veins. "I was thinking exactly what I said I was thinking when I gave that interview," he answered calmly. "Care to know what I'm thinking right now? I'm thinking that you're a power mad ogre of an officer who is wasting a lot of time yelling at me when you should be overseeing the investigation of the downtown Makai District. The four hostages have been missing from the Minamino house for not even 48 hours, correct? You really should, as the old saying goes, strike while the iron is hot."
"I don't need some uppity civilian telling me how to do my job!" roared the Lieutenant. Letting his temper get the best of him, he made to punch Yomi, but the latter caught the formers fist before it reached his face.
"I do agree with you that it is rather ludicrous that a civilian knows how to do your job better than you do, Lieutenant; however, I doubt you really want to hit me. What with all the police brutality cases currently coming to the attention of the public, striking a blind man will do nothing to help your precinct's image, especially right now."
The Lieutenant shook with fury, and quickly turned from this aggravation. "I believe we're through here," he said coolly. "My people will call your people if we turn up anything new."
"Indeed," said Yomi (had he eyes, he'd have been rolling them right then). He rose, and to the tapping of his cane, showed himself the way out.
Detective Koenma saw the blind man out of the corner of his eye and frowned. "Remind me to send Mr. Yomi a thank-you bomb for that wonderful interview he gave."
"Hey now, watch it," warned Botan. "You want us to be taken seriously or not? Now, care to help me deal with this?" She gestured to their 'visitors.'
Koenma groaned. "Fine, I'll take the mom and grandma." He approached said women. "Ah, hello Ms. Urameshi and Ms. Genkai-."
"Have you found anything else yet?" demanded Atsuko Urameshi.
"Uh..." This woman, with her spotless pressed wrinkle-free clothes, her hair pulled back in the most severe of hairstyles, and her wire-rimmed glasses, intimidated him very much. "We're doing everything we can, Ms. Urameshi-."
"Well do more!" she snapped. "You have no idea what this entire ordeal has been for me! Everyone at the social club keep bringing this up, and they never fail to mention how he was picked up with two juvenile delinquents!"
"Um..." This woman talked as though she cared more for her image than her own son.
"You must find Yusuke soon," pleaded Genkai, a short, fragile sort of woman wearing a poodle sweater. "It's raining out there; he might catch cold or pneumonia and die..."
"Yeah, so, I was watching that blind guy on T.V., and I, like, heard what he was saying about suing the city and stuff, and I decided that, like, if you guys don't find my baby brother, that's what I might do, so yeah..."
"Uh-huh," Botan said, nodding, a big fake smile pasted on her face. 'What a ditz!' she thought. As Koenma tried reasoning with Yusuke Urameshi's family, so Botan tried to do with Kazuma Kuwabara's sister, Shizuru. "Well, we're trying our best to find your brother, Miss Kuwabara, okay?" She tried her best to sound her most cheery and preppy.
"Okay!" exclaimed Shizuru. "Well, I'll be, like, leaving now because I'm, like, late for cheerleading practice, and then I'm going to the club with some Sorority girls, so yeah."
"Okay then." Botan waited until the pink and frills that were Shizuru Kuwabara had disappeared, and then shuddered. "Like, oh my God, she is, like, so preppy, like, gag me with a spoon!"
"Are you okay?" asked Hiei, concerned.
"Y-Yeah," chattered Kurama, wiping the sweat off his brow. "C-Could you bring me a glass of water, please?"
"Um, yeah." Hiei hesitated at the door. "Do you want a blanket or something?" Kurama shrugged. "I'll be right back."
Kurama lay on his side, curled into a ball. His body felt like an oven, and black dots kept appearing before his eyes. 'Stupid,' he scolded himself, knowing this was a side effect from his wounds, of which he'd probably made worse. His breath came out in a shaky hiss through chattering teeth; he could feel sweat emanating from every pore in his body.
He was dimly aware of Hiei coming back and wrapping a blanket around him, and then pressing a water glass to his lips. He took greedy gulps of that slightly gritty-tasting liquid, pressing himself against Hiei, whimpering due to the switch of his body temperature from hot to cold and back.
"You know, I quit eating for a while," he murmured. The fever was messing with his mind. "It killed my immune system, you know?" He nudged his head into Hiei's lap. "He had to take care of me, come upstairs when he was on break and mush vitamin capsules into baby food and force-feed me. I hated it, and I'm sure he hated it, but he did it all anyhow."
Hiei rubbed Kurama's back. "Who's 'he'?"
But the redhead merely closed his eyes and heaved a soft little sigh. "He wasn't bad, you know? Sure, he did steal, but it was only to keep us fed when working didn't cut it. A lot of people were going hungry down here back then- a lot of them had to turn to illegal activity just to keep themselves and their families alive. And then all these rough-necks- the real shady type- they crawled out of some damn cesspool and hung around in the neighborhood and frightened away business, and he had to do it more.
"He tried to get another job, you know, after people grew too scared to bring in their cars anymore. He shut his eyes. "He took care of me when I was sick too; I started to feel bad that he was giving so much and receiving so little from me. That's why I got up and tried contributing- I started working in a little shop. It didn't last long, but I managed to scrounge a gift for him out of the entire thing." He smiled deliriously. "He had a fascination with feudal weapons.
"But he wasn't even lucky enough to land anything temporary- would-be employers would take one look at him and immediately deem him as no-good street trash, and they'd turn him away. So he had to steal more." He afforded a sarcastic little chuckle. "Society is so judgmental, you know?"
"Who's 'he'?" Hiei asked again.
"For example," Kurama continued, "People would see me on occasion who knew me from before. Some turned away from me and pretended not to see; some spat at me; some wished to 'help' me, but it always involved giving up Kuronue and ignoring those sorts of feelings, because they were 'sinful.' I decided I'd rather starve than accept their self-righteous 'help'."
Hiei raised his eyebrows. 'Kuronue,' he thought.
"We never meant to get so caught up in the whole gangster deal; it just... happened." He smiled in a delirious sort of way. "I suppose that after doing it long enough, in an effort to survive, we just sort of… adapted, if that's the right word for it."
Kurama reached for Hiei's hand, the one holding the water glass, but discovered that he'd already drained its contents. "I'll get more," said Hiei. "In a minute."
"I loved him," Kurama said weakly, sitting up a little and resting his head on Hiei's shoulder. "And even though times grew worse, I never stopped loving him. And even now, now that he's gone and I'm stuck here alone, I still love him... and I always will."
"He died," Hiei stated. Kurama nodded.
"We angered some businessmen- these greedy corporate slime bags, the type who make their money by feeding off the impoverished, you know? - We stole from them. They had money coming out of the ass- money they took from people like the ones in our neighborhood, the people who couldn't get any jobs or feed themselves or anything- as sickeningly funny as it is, we were probably better off than most in our neighborhood. But they just couldn't part with that money graciously- it was probably a fraction of a fraction of what people like them have, and the way they reacted, you'd think we'd driven them to bankruptcy (oh, how I wish that had been the case- now that might have made it all worth it, to see them reduced to our level). They sent people- people like the people who came out of that cesspool into our neighborhood- out after us. I escaped; Kuronue didn't. He made me go on while they riddled his body with the bullets of a machine gun."
Hiei noticed that through the delirious tone of voice, Kurama sounded rather depressed.
"I went back for his body, but it was gone when I came. They must have taken it, I guess, to cover it up, the killing- possibly dismembered and scattered it or ground it up or poured lime over it... All I found when I returned was blood and the occasional chunk of flesh... and the pendant." He fingered his necklace. "A bullet must have snapped its cord; I found it lying under a dumpster, reflecting the glow of a streetlight situated at the end of the alley.
"I ran the Youkai alone after that for a very long time. These men, these murderers of my Kuronue, they were viewed as distinguished gentlemen by the people. Kuronue? A worthless criminal who got what he deserved, damn thief, vagabond, may he rot in hell. Myself? Faggot, little immoral cock-sucking ass-banging sodomite whore, deviant, ought to smear his perverted brains on the pavement, send him to hell because heaven won't possibly take him. The public was stupid, fuck the public. Nobody was innocent or pure in my eyes afterward. I killed, and I enjoyed it, enjoyed doing it as cruelly as possible."
'There's a lot of pent-up anger in there,' Hiei thought. He was beginning to see Kurama's drinking habit in an entirely new light….
The transvestite's entire body was shivering violently now, despite the blanket. Hiei pressed him to his own body, trying to keep him warm. "I got revenge though, on those businessmen. It was quite personal- they all died by my hands, the most awful and painful deaths I could devise. It became a bit of a game, trying to think of different ways to kill them. A little fun, even."
It occurred to Hiei that Kurama's wounds were probably a key factor in the fever. He gingerly lifted up Kurama's skirt and pulled down his torn stockings-.
"What are you doing?" somebody asked sharply. Toguro had come upstairs, and was now eying Hiei suspiciously, clenching his fists.
The billionaire blinked, and then realized why the giant behaved so. "It's not how it appears!" he said hastily. "He's hurt- he has this wound on his thigh and another on his stomach. And I think he has a fever."
Toguro examined the thigh wound, and then pulled up Kurama's shirt to see the one there. The redhead groaned when he felt his brow. "Your hands are too hot!" he complained, trying to push away said appendages.
"Kurama, have you eaten anything recently?" Toguro asked.
"Does vodka count?" he asked weakly. Hiei and Toguro both groaned.
"Kurama," Toguro said. "You should probably rest; we'll try to make the fever break." He and Hiei lay the redhead down on the mattress and tucked blankets around him.
"She died, too, a few years after Kuronue." Kurama curled up under the blankets, looking very drowsy. "And the chief executive of her estate tracked me down- man I'd known all my life, he refused to look me in the eye the entire time we met, damned coward. She'd left me everything: house, money, possessions, et cetera...
"... I never hated her. I tried to, but I couldn't. I hated many things about her, but I could never bring myself to hate her. And I thought that maybe, possibly, this gesture, that she never disowned me, that she left me heir, meant that maybe despite all she'd said, despite throwing me out and everything, that maybe a part of her still loved me..."
Hiei and Toguro stood by, uncomfortable buy unable to do anything, and watched this delirious, feverish Kurama cry himself to sleep.
"Kuronue…" Toguro muttered thoughtfully. "I've heard that name before…."
"The other co-founder," said Hiei. "They were lovers. He was saying a lot of things earlier."
The giant nodded slowly. "So he's made you a sort of confidant," he observed, without the slightest hint of envy in his voice.
"Uh, yeah, I guess." A confidant. Hiei couldn't help but think of scenes he's watched in hospital dramas, where the dying patient confessed all his or her woes to a priest or somebody along those lines. Though he doubted Kurama would appreciate that sort of comparison- he got the drift that the transvestite wouldn't like those who claimed to be 'holy persons'- and he wasn't so sure that he could blame him, either, given what he caught from Kurama's feverish account.
But be it a 'holy person'- of which Hiei was most certainly not, or a family member/loved one or a complete stranger, in those dramas the dying person almost always made some sort of deathbed statement. And that was the part that frightened him.