Candy

By Ky

Summary: A one-shot from Yomi's point of view. Insomnia and a spiked cup of tea bring Yomi closer to Kurama and allow the Makai king to understand the emotions behind the fox-demon-turned-human's actions. Set during the beginning of the Three Kings Saga.

Genre: Romance

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: Shonen-ai, alcohol use, and some language.

Disclaimer: I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho, and I actually don't own ogre's bane, either. It's something Chuu drinks to get power during the Dark Tournament.

Notes: I actually wrote this back in June, but I was so busy getting my cosplay ready for Anime Iowa that I didn't finish typing it until now. Unlike most of my fanfics, I actually know what inspired this. I was really bored on a family vacation, and this fanfic spawned from the song "Breathing in Sequence" by Hawthorne Heights and a fanart I drew. I ultimately decided on the title because "Better" by Plumb was stuck in my head.

For the third night in a row, I couldn't sleep. So I decided to take a walk, hoping that would tire me out sufficiently so I could fall asleep. I'm not as young as I used to be, and now I'm turning into an insomniac. Fantastic. All right, so I'm not nearly as old as Raizen and Mukuro or most of my advisors and the people who work in my palace. But Kurama makes me feel old. As a demon, he was at least a few years older than me, but now, as a human, he's—what? Fifteen? Sixteen? And I'm almost 2000 and I have a son.

Not that I don't love Shura. He's a great kid, and darned adorable, too.

Anyway, I couldn't sleep, so I pulled a bathrobe on over my pajamas, slipped my feet into a pair of slippers, and left my room for a nice walk around my palace. It probably seems strange that a great Makai king such as me would walk around his palace in his pajamas, but it was the middle of the night. No one was awake to care.

One of the funny things about being blind is this: I have no idea what color my pajamas are. Or most of my clothes, for that matter. I could have been wandering the halls of my palace in motley for all I knew. Since they were pajamas, it didn't really matter. However, I do have someone who picks out my clothes for me on special occasions when I need to make a good impression. I make sure to never make him mad because he could dress me in neon-colored floral prints, and I wouldn't know it unless the texture was different from what I normally wore or until I heard people snickering. I also don't know what people look like unless they describe themselves to me, or I've spent a long time feeling them up.

Naturally, the latter doesn't happen very often. Or at all.

I paused in my walk because I sensed someone's presence a few feet in front of me, beside one of the large windows that line the hallway. His aura made him easy to identify. The dull, pulsing feel of human spirit energy surrounded a thin core of white-hot demon energy. Kurama. I could hear his breathing, deep and relaxed. He was thinking hard about something. Meditating on it, more like. He didn't seem to hear me approach, but I wasn't about to underestimate Kurama.

Let me take a moment to quell a rumor that I've heard circulating amongst some of my palace staff. They have attempted to explain my fairly obvious interest in Kurama by suggesting that the feel of human spirit energy turns me on. Actually, this is anything but true. Human spirit energy bores me. It contains all the excitement of static electricity, which can manage nothing but making one's hair stand on end, and it only does that if one puts a fair amount of effort into it by rubbing a balloon or some-such object on one's head. No, the thing about Kurama that really makes me tingle is his demon energy. It's as unpredictable as a flame, flaring up and mixing with his human energy, melting through it, burning to be let loose… Not that I'd tell any of my palace staff this. It's not any of their business.

"Kurama," I stated, announcing my presence. There was a light rustle of fabric and the soft pad-pad of stocking feet adjusting position on the stone floor as he turned to face me. I could feel his eyes settling at the level of my chin. Kurama has this annoying habit of not looking me in the eyes—or at least, where my eyes used to be—and somehow, I don't think it has anything to do with my height. It seemed he was not overly surprised to find me standing behind him, which meant, as zoned-out as he was, he had felt my aura or heard my footsteps from the beginning.

"Yomi" was his creative response, which gave me the feeling that we could be at this all night.

So, I decided to intervene with the equally creative response, "What were you doing?"

"Staring at the moon. Thinking," he admitted.

"I see." I could feel heat behind Kurama's eyes as I said this, and his pulse quickened just a bit. He was on edge now, and he was glaring at me. Toying with his guilt was just too much fun. He was so sensitive…

"So, how come you're up so late? Or is it early?" Kurama asked, trying to sound amiable when I could tell he was annoyed with me.

"I couldn't sleep. Here, do you want something to drink?"

More fabric rustling as he shrugged. Without further ado, I headed off down another hallway in the direction of the kitchen. My slippers made loud slapping sounds on the stone floor, and I made no effort to conceal them because, really, it was my palace. I was one of the three kings of Makai. I had a right to make loud slapping sounds on the floor of my palace any time I liked. Kurama, on the other hand… Why he was walking around without shoes on was anybody's guess. Most likely, he had rolled out of bed in his pajamas just like I had, then gone to "stare at the moon," as he said.

We arrived at the kitchen, and I gestured for Kurama to take a seat at the table while I went to wake up the cook. The palace kitchen was actually made up of several rooms: the front room, where Kurama and I were now, contained a large wooden table, several chairs, and a bar. The back room was the actual kitchen, where meals were prepared. Attached to that were several storerooms. Also, Cook and her assistants had quarters attached to the kitchen area.

I rapped on the door of Cook's room.

"Erm…Just a moment!" Cook called, and I heard her rummaging around her room. Finally, she opened the door. "Lord Yomi? Good heavens, you're not pulling another all-nighter, are you?"

Cook is a sweet, old demon woman who dotes on me as if I were her son or something. Also, she doesn't mind that everyone calls her Cook. She takes pride in it. And she should. She cooks some of the best food I've ever tasted.

Cook bustled around the front room of the kitchen, muttering to herself. "Insomnia again? No more coffee for you, no sir." I wanted to protest that I really didn't drink that much coffee, but I decided it was futile.

"Where's Shura…? Well, at least he has the sense to sleep at this hour. I should bake him some more cookies…"

"Cook, Shura does not need any more cookies," I replied, putting my foot down on that one.

"He's a skinny boy, needs some meat on his bones," she argued with me. Then she seemed to remember her place. "With all due respect, Lord Yomi."

Kurama chuckled softly at Cook's antics. This alerted her of his presence, and she whirled around. "You! What are you doing here?"

I smiled patiently at her. "Well, actually, Cook, he's with me. We'd like something to drink, if you please."

"With you, is he? Well, what can I get you two to drink, then?" she replied in a cheerful voice that sounded forced.

At this point in time, I'd like to mention that Cook rather disliked Kurama. Most of my advisors and palace staff did, as a matter of fact, but they expressed it in a different manner—all hush-hush, insults disguised as compliments, and tones of voice that suggested innuendos. When Cook didn't like something, there were no secrets about it. Recently, she had told me directly that she didn't like Kurama, and she thought he was a bad influence on me, "with all due respect, Lord Yomi." She also expressed her dislike of Kurama by serving him food that was slightly cold. I could have easily put a stop to this behavior and spared poor Kurama, but I found the whole thing so amusing that I chose not to.

"I'll have whiskey," I told Cook, and she clicked her tongue at me in a disapproving manner, regarding my choice of beverage. Despite all this, she poured it for me and set it on the table in front of me.

"And you?" she asked Kurama.

"Er, a cup of tea?" he suggested uncertainly.

"I'll cup-of-tea you," Cook muttered under her breath, in a tone Kurama's human range of hearing probably couldn't pick up. She began puttering about behind her bar counter, mixing and pouring tea. I struck up a conversation with Kurama to distract him from the fact that Cook was pouring something extra into his tea. When she brought it to him, I managed to get a whiff of it and determine the added ingredient.

Ogre's bane. It's probably the most potent liquor in all of Makai. It doesn't take much of it to make a human comatose, and it's been known to make many a demon dangerously drunk. Not many people can stomach it. I tried it once, back in my bandit days. It burned the back of my throat in a way that was worse than whiskey, and it got me so intoxicated that Kurama—Youko Kurama, that is—felt the need to sober me up using the rather unconventional method of slapping me across the face repeatedly. So my days of drinking ogre's bane ended with a sore face and the worst hangover I've ever experienced. I wouldn't recommend trying ogre's bane to anyone.

Kurama gagged when he took a sip of his tea. Cook made a huffing sound, giving the impression that she was mortally offended by his rudeness.

"Not like Mummy fixed it?" I sneered.

Kurama swallowed stubbornly and with some difficulty. "It's fine. A bit hot," he growled, and I could feel him glaring again.

I wasn't sure what Cook's intent was when it came to spiking Kurama's tea with ogre's bane. If her plan was to get him incredibly drunk just to spite him, then that was fine with me. It could be entertaining. However, I had to draw the line at doing any direct harm to him.

So Kurama and I continued our petty little conversation on the topic of politics. He glowered the whole time. I had him in stalemate—metaphorically speaking, of course—and he knew it. He couldn't refuse to drink the tea or suggest that it tasted funny without seeming rude. He already had enough opposition in Makai that he couldn't really afford to be anything but polite and agreeable.

Cook continued to graciously refill Kurama's tea without him ever having to ask for it. On the other hand, I had to request for her to refill my whiskey. Several times I teasingly accused her of playing favorites. Which she was, but in the opposite of the way that it appeared. After a while, Kurama was laughing too loudly at my jokes (which weren't funny to begin with) and finding it difficult to talk clearly. I was feeling a bit tipsy myself. I decided it was time to let Cook get back to sleep. So, we left the kitchen with Cook telling me that Kurama was the first person she'd ever seen get drunk on tea, that he was definitely a bad influence on me, and that I should stay out of trouble. What did I say earlier about her treating me like her son? It wasn't my idea to spike Kurama's tea. Who was the bad influence on whom now?

So, Kurama and I were walking down the hallway again, my slippers making the same annoying slapping sounds, but this time he was having trouble balancing in socks on the smooth stone floor. Really he was having trouble balancing, period, and his socks just made it worse. Kurama took a step and ended up sliding about two feet down the hallway and landing on his rear end on the floor, laughing loudly the whole time. I had to kick him to shut him up. Then, he made a gurgling sound, and a coughing-spitting sound, and vomited right in the middle of the hallway. I groaned, pulled Kurama to his feet, and made sure I made a wide berth around the area where he had puked. No way was I touching that one. There were people in the palace who were paid to clean things up without asking questions, and I was not one of them.

"Sorry 'bout that," Kurama slurred.

"Just don't do it again," I replied, taking a deep breath.

"'Kay." And then he started talking. Just babbling all kinds of random things, talking more than I'd ever heard him talk. Some of it was interesting, but most of it was just plain annoying. For the first time, though, it was him, not me, who brought up the topic of The Good Old Days.

"Remember when we were bandits together?" he began. His speech was thick, his words slurred together.

How could I forget?

"Everything was so much simpler then. Nothing to protect but my own interests. Didn't love anyone enough that I couldn't leave. Knew who I was. Now, it's like… Well, who the hell am I, anyway!" He sounded close to tears.

"You're--" When my somewhat whiskey-fogged mind mulled it over, that was a good question. He wasn't the Youko I knew, but he wasn't not, either… If that made any sense. Which even I knew it didn't.

"I just want to… to be simple," he sobbed, tears flowing freely now. "To make sense!" And I admit I was starting to feel a bit sorry for him. I mean, his very aura was depressing now. The demon energy trapped inside the human energy didn't feel so dangerously exciting anymore. Instead, it just felt sad. Imprisoned. Unusual. Suddenly, I realized how much of a misfit Kurama was, not at home in Makai or Human World. Two unlike parts juxtaposed together, with the lines between them beginning to blur.

"Just…" Kurama was still crying. I wondered how long he'd been holding this in. "Just… I want to be…"

"Like we were," I finished for him. "Just two men, acting on their passions." And it was stupid. And sentimental. And overall just a stupid, sappy thing to say. But I guess Kurama liked it because he kissed me. He wrapped his arms around my neck, leaned against me, and kissed my mouth. I'm not sure how he managed it because he's at least a foot shorter than me, and it was the last thing I was expecting. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it. I do think his suddenly kissing me is proof that there is way too much sexual tension in our relationship, though.

After Kurama remembered that he needed continued oxygen flow to his drunken brain in order to survive and released me, I held him in my arms and kissed his tears, even though they tasted salty. He was so small and warm, and he seemed so defenseless, so I ignored the fact that his breath stunk like he was probably ignoring the whiskey on mine…

I'm not sure how we both ended up in my bed. Probably had something to do with a bunch of sloppy kisses and me biting at Kurama's neck and ear…

So, I lay beside Kurama, our heads resting on my soft pillows, our bodies drowning in clean linen sheets and my huge, downy comforter. I ran my fingers through his hair, every inch of it: the split ends, the frizzy, cowlick-y bits, the snarled parts where he kept the seeds he used as weapons, the only smooth part of his hair, which was at the back of his head… I asked him what color it was and, lying against my bare chest, he told me "Red."

"Red-orange?" I asked.

I could feel him trying to shake his head while lying down. It tickled. "Uh-uh."

"Red like blood?"

He rolled away from me, the tips of his hair still clinging to my fingertips. "No."

"Red like what?"

"Um… Red like… I don't know!" I'd never heard Kurama admit that he didn't know as many times as I did that night. "Cherry," he said finally.

That still left me grasping at straws. "Cherry what?"

"Un-nuh…" was Kurama's reply.

So, I had to guess at the color. Since he seemed so sweet to me, I picked a lovely cherry candy I'd seen once, before I lost my eyes. Red sometimes, but when the light shone on it, almost pink…

"And your eyes?" I asked, tracing the outline of his jawbone with my thumb.

"Green," he whispered. Then, he pretty much passed out from all the ogre's bane and began snoring, sounding drunk and stupid.

With my fingers, I continued to trace the smooth, delicate lines of his face, and I ran my hands over his torso, arms and legs, hands and feet… I was desperate to form a mental picture of this person whom I'd been making out with, associate something more pleasant with him, something besides the smell of vomit and ogre's bane, the feel of thick, tangled hair, smooth skin, and cotton pajamas, the sound of drunken snoring… I wanted to grasp some understanding of this person who was familiar and yet unfamiliar, so much the Kurama I knew—the youko—and at the same time, so different from him. Still, I didn't try to undress him or do any of the other lustful things I would have tried to do to Youko Kurama. Instead, I draped a protective arm across his shoulders and fell asleep.

0 0 0

I woke up the next morning with a dream lingering in my mind. I was kissing Kurama, and his cherry-candy hair was blowing in the wind, and fireworks were going off behind us for no explainable reason… Fully awake now, I had to make sure last night hadn't been a dream, too. Nope. Kurama was curled up against me, a sweet little lump of cotton-and-cotton-blend pajamas and messy hair, making adorable snuffle-y noises as he breathed. When he was sleeping, he seemed so innocent and cuddly…

But he ruined it by waking up. He groaned; mattress and bed sheets shifted as he sat up. "My head…." He shifted about frantically. Then he groaned again and flopped back down on my bed. "Ugh."

"Bad hangover?" I asked.

"Don't talk," Kurama replied grouchily. "Hurts my head. Tell me where I am."

"My bed." He sat bolt upright again. Then I decided to get obnoxious. He was ruining my good mood. "Listen, do you wake up in strange men's beds often, because you could probably act a bit more surprised."

"Yomi…" Kurama growled, warning me.

But I was not going to heed that warning. "Really, it was a great night. How much do I owe you?"

"You bastard!" I really do think Kurama reserves those two words just for me. I'm one of the few people who really succeeds in making him angry. Not cruel, calculating anger. Real anger. The kind that makes one see red. At that particular moment, there was so much heat radiating from Kurama's eyes that I thought he could have strangled me without a second thought.

After last night, I think I'm one of the few people who really succeeds in making Kurama feel anything at all.

"Yomi, what the hell happened last night?" he asked me, his tone of voice suggesting that he was barely remaining civil.

"You managed to get incredibly drunk from spiked tea," I replied, adding a cheerful note to my voice. "After that, I really can't say."

Kurama enjoyed a long moment of hung-over, flabbergasted silence until I got frustrated and had to shatter it.

"Don't be an idiot, Kurama. We didn't have sex. One of the things I used to admire about you was your skill at making observations. Yet, your brain hasn't even begun to comprehend the fact that, though you may be lying in my bed, you're still fully clothed!"

While Kurama once again exercised his right to remain silent, I noticed the sound of footsteps in the hallway leading to my bedroom. "Shit! Get down, get under the covers, hide somewhere!" I ordered Kurama.

"Yomi?" This time, his tone suggested that I was not quite right in the head.

"Your weak human ears can't hear them yet," I snapped, "but there are two people heading in our direction." I listened again to the footsteps, trying to distinguish and recognize their pattern. I could tell Kurama was straining to focus his demon energy, trying to pick up the sounds as well. "It's Shura and—Damnit!—Youda. Neither of which would particularly like to see you here. So it would be best, for your reputation and mine, if you found a place to hide." Then, because of the relative urgency of the situation, I shoved him roughly under the covers without asking his opinion and hoped he'd have the sense not to move.

The door swung open, and I recognized Shura's bounding footsteps entering the room. Damnit, I thought I taught him to knock. Whit if my hearing hadn't improved to compensate for my sight, so that it was at the level of an average demon? Then I wouldn't have known he was outside! Plus, barging in without knocking is just plain rude. As my heir, he needs to know these things.

"'Morning, Papa!" Shura exclaimed, shoving against me as he tried to squeeze into bed next to me.

"Good morning, Shura," I replied with a smile. Then, I heard Youda shuffle into the room.

"Yes, good morning, Lord Yomi," he said, sounding uptight and condescending as always, even though he was my subordinate. "It's time for your breakfast."

"That time already? Well, I was just getting up…"

"Late night, Lord Yomi?" Youda asked. I could feel his eyes sweeping the room. Probably observing my shirt and bathrobe, which had been thrown unceremoniously on the floor. Normally, I hang up my clothes, but circumstances being as they were…

As Youda and I were having this conversation, Shura was fidgeting. As he bounced on the mattress, some part of him, probably his foot, connected with an object that didn't make the soft funf sound of comforter, sheets, and mattress. It sounded firmer. "Papa?" my son queried, perplexed.

Youda must have noticed something was amiss because he suddenly stopped talking. Youda is an insufferable, old demon who enjoys nothing more than listening to himself talk and making snide remarks, so when he's quiet, you definitely have a situation.

"Youda? Something the matter?" I asked, not allowing any of my panic to appear in my voice. But, being who he was, Youda ignored me. I need to have a talk with him about insubordination.

The miserable, old bastard paced over to my bedside and began jabbing at my comforter with his claws. After a minute, he gave a self-satisfied "Hm," then snatched up great handfuls of the bedclothes and stepped back, yanking them off and revealing my pajama-clad legs and, of course, Kurama, lying there, probably looking as if he had been trying to melt into the mattress. Upon discovery, he let out the breath he had been holding and sat up.

"Papa, what's he doing in your bed?" Shura asked.

Youda's eyes were roving about the room again, flipping form Kurama to my lovely clothes pile on the floor, and, oh yeah, to the red mark that was probably pretty apparent on Kurama's neck. 'Why am I not surprised?" Youda hissed, his silky voice directed entirely at Kurama.

Then, it occurred to him that he apparently couldn't trash-talk Kurama with Shura around and requested that he leave.

"Why? I'm the heir to the throne. I don't have to listen to you."

"Shura," I beseeched, "Go eat breakfast. I'm sure Cook made muffins for you."

"I'm not hungry. I want to know what's going on. I'm not going."

"Shura, you will go, because your father said so," I replied, losing patience. He hopped off of my bed and dragged his feet out the door, grumbling the whole way.

Once my son was gone, Youda turned furiously back to Kurama. "If this is how you've been winning Lord Yomi's favor, it needs to stop. Immediately."

"I can promise you, this is the first time anything like this has happened," Kurama replied.

I doubted Youda would buy this, even though it was true.

"Either way, that's no excuse!" Youda snapped. "I never want to see you here again."

"If that's all, then I'll be leaving now," was Kurama's calm response, and I imagined the way his bright, candy-colored hair would whirl about him as he swept out of the room.

"You really have no right to speak to Kurama like that, you know," I told Youda. "He's going to be my second in command."

"Second or not, Lord Yomi, my job is to advise you. And I say that promoting your… your…" Youda seemed unable to spit out what he wanted to say, so he changed tactics. "Promoting someone like him to the rank of second in command is a bad idea."

"What makes you say that, Youda?"

"He's a human, Lord Yomi. No one here respects him, and he has no respect for the way we do things here. He's only here at all because of your invitation. And although he's done nothing to forward our plans for unification, you say he's going to be your second in command. Forgive me, Lord Yomi, but people talk. I'm sure you've heard the rumors. If you continue to make rash decisions--"

I cut him off. "I do not make a decision without first thoroughly thinking it thought. That hasn't changed with Kurama's arrival. You know that."

"Yes, Lord Yomi. But may I ask, what do you see in him? His demon energy is not particularly strong, and it's not as though he's particularly handsome. He lacks respect (probably common sense, too), and his hair could do with a good brushing, at the very least…"

As Youda continued on, I couldn't help but smile. He would never understand my affection for Kurama, or Kurama himself. Youda was a man of science and mathematics, of data in charts and graphs, of verifiable facts, numbers, and specimens under microscopes, all taken from controlled experiments. But life—and love—are not controlled experiments. There may be enough data for two people in the file pertaining to Kurama in Youda's computer database, telling his history as a demon and a human, his strengths and weaknesses from his performance in the Dark Tournament, and describing his existence inn a variety of short words and numbers (height: 5 feet, 11 inches, age: 15, demonic energy measure: 8400, energy class: B-. All information is as of last update and is subject to change). But with this information, Youda could have no idea who Kurama was. It isn't numbers, charts, and events that make a person or shape one's feelings for that person. It is the less tangible things, the uncontrolled variables. What that person does with those numbers, how he reacts to those events of his life. The personality. The emotions. The people he loves and the expressions of his love. The way he seeks comfort from his fear and loneliness. The way he bears his burdens and seeks repentance for his sins. It's those things that make a person, not just a file of data in an experiment. Those are the reasons for Kurama, the things that make him more than a greedy, heartless demon; the reasons why I know I care for him. The little things, the weaknesses that he keeps hidden, those are the sweet things about him. Those are the things that make him matter to me.