It was a chilly day, but that didn't stop the young woman from playing outside. She was skipping happily through the snow, tossing it up with her shoes until it caught in her long, tangled hair and in the fringe at the ends of her silky scarf. She was doing it on purpose – he surmised. She liked being cold and wet and sniffling endlessly into the wet, dirty sleeve of her much too light jacket. Skipping skipping, a careless toss of her aquamarine hair. Her laughter sang out through the chill air, shattering the illusion of deadly perfection in a winter storm. The winds reared up a bit – perturbed that their fury was mocked in such sweet, giggling innocence. He bit back a smile – just barely maintaining his stoicism and belatedly making up for the slip by firmly drawing his brows together, scowling ferociously at nothing in particular. She was still laughing, he was still aching to watch, he still had all the time in the world – despite all of that, he turned from her frolicking. He walked a pace or two away and halted with such sudden indecision that for a moment he felt paralyzed. She had started singing. Quietly, out of tune, and with innocent phrasing that bordered on the childish, she was stumbling her way through a song she was making up on the spot. He had never wanted anything more than he wanted to listen. Despite that – or maybe because of it, he resolutely walked on. It had been long enough: maybe too long. He needed to get out of here. Not because he was bored, not because he was expected elsewhere, not because she was too close to discovering him lurking and watching. Because he had been there for a moment or two. Had fulfilled the requirement. And Hiei Jaganshi never did more than exactly that which was required of him.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
He was determined to sort this out. Determined to reach some sort of resolution, and to let down his burdens, if only for a second's respite. The only person who had any hope of helping him was not far from here. He could only trust that the plant wielder would be the fount of insight and advice that he usually proved himself to be. It would not be easy, he knew. But Hiei had built his life on a bedrock of unrest, foundations of pain, and walls of self-flagellation. He would not know how to respond to ease, should he find it. With focused energy he turned himself inward. He needed to plan the words. They were not natural – he was not an articulate man. Nor was he eloquent, nor verbose. Therefore he would map out his telling in the way a careful man maps out a route to a city he does not know. Hiei would not be lost on the winding highways of verbiage and specificity. Resolved, he began quietly speaking, in practice.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Kurama was reclined on his bed, listening to Hiei's resounding state of speechlessness and picking up on all of the subtle nuances and colorations of quiet, silent, unresponsive, hushed, noiseless, still, and finally – most shockingly – mute, that comprised the larger part of his friend's vocabulary. Finally, he had drawn a picture (from nothingness, he reflected with a wry smile for himself) of what had happened. Of course, with none of the details it would be difficult to voice what he understood only on a basic level that was far deeper than words could ever venture.
"You've upset yourself." He despised using more words than necessary. Grimacing, he noted that such a characteristic likened him to a poet. Hiei's response was to be unresponsive. "You did not expect the event to occur." Further lack of response. "You had built no defenses for yourself – the shock of it left you... confused." Tentatively unresponsive, although it bordered on silence. "Angry." True silence now. "Uneasy." Silence, flavored with a hush. Kurama was fishing, now. "Nervous." Immediately quiet. "Worried." Quickly moving into noiselessness. "Frightened." Stillness. Perfect stillness was his friend's only response. Kurama sighed to himself. So that was it. Hiei was afraid of something and evidently incapable of voicing his fear.
He studied his dark haired friend for a moment – sharing in the stillness. Only one event could ever wring from Hiei's emotions even a flash of muteness – such strength and depth of emotion was nearly unheard of from his dark friend. And he had definitely sensed a mute moment while Hiei had been wordlessly relating his tale. "Yukina." Hiei's eyes flew up to meet the red-head's.
His eyes were screaming a thousand things, his posture screaming a million to the contrary. But Kurama knew that this moment – despite its infinite communications, was a mute one. Just now, right here, Hiei hated Kurama. Hated him with all of his soul, and yet his face was pleading with Kurama, begging him to solve this dilemma with a wave of his sometimes-like-magic flashes of instinct or knowledge or luck.
"Alright. Yes, I see why you choose not to speak of it." And he did. Beneath his masses of brilliant crayola classic hair, Kurama's brain had been steadily clicking along, sometimes faster than others, but always whirring, running, fitting together the pieces. He believed he understood the man before him in his reluctance to voice the problem he faced today.
Something in the fire-demon's face gave him pause. He deciphered the noiselessness with ease, only peripherally noting the conclusion of the muted moment. "Of course you choose. You could put voice to it, could you not?" When met with seething silence he continued. "You have vocal cords Hiei." His patience was running thin.
Hiei looked supremely discomfited. "I could not." He checked the red-head's response, wanting to see if the first words – the only words - he had spoken would be enough. They were not. "I do not make the decision not to speak of it. I cannot."
Kurama evaluated that statement. "Ridiculous." Hiei offered a quiet sound from the back of his throat in response. It wasn't quite a grunt, but it certainly didn't qualify as a murmur or a hum. "Truly. You came to me with the intention of discussing-" the look in his friend's eyes caused him to qualify "-in words, Hiei-" his hopeful gleam faded when the fox spirit blockaded his semantic argument that they had discussed "-whatever it is you fear." Hiei twitched. "You then changed your mind." He thought for a moment, eyes tilted toward the ceiling as though reading an answer from it. "Or rather, your mind changed you." Satisfied, he turned back from the sky to view Hiei. Noting the open-book quiet, Kurama was pleased to verify that in this argument at least, he had emerged the victor.