Yukina

Chapter 3: My Friend

I'm still in the process of working out all the implications of what I've just been told when I hear Kurama rush at me without warning.

My eyes narrow, and I whip around to face my attacker. Still, I know that realistically I am powerless to do little more than raise a hand in defense.

Crap.

I brace myself for the force of a blow, and curse myself for believing an idiotic façade.

So I am understandably stunned when, instead of a punch in the stomach or a blow to the back of the head, I find myself enfolded into a gentle...hug.

I look down, as my 'attacker' collapses to his knees, dragging his arms down by sides to settle around my waist as he buries his face in the coarse, black material of my threadbare shirt.

I blink, trying to comprehend what the hell is going on. My mind registers a spreading wetness where the flaming red head is pressed into his stomach.

My eyes widen.

He's...he's crying? What the hell?

"Wha...what...?" It's hard to form a complete sentence. Stupid demonic human. Why must he confuse me so?

I raise my hand and place it on the soft hair, my cheeks bursting into flame as I awkwardly pat my...friend on the head and contort my face into a grimace. I am not good at this. I can't remember ever trying to placate someone else...or being comforted either, come to think of it. Actually…

My eyes widen even more, darting back and forth, as I search my mind frantically for a shred of a past, any past at all...

And finding, to my horror and confusion, that there is nothing.

Not only do I have no memories of comforting another person or being comforted...

I have no memories at all.

Really, not knowing my own name should have tipped me off. My arms drop to hang limply at my sides as I stare blankly off into space, poring over every aspect of the contents of my brain.

But there is absolutely nothing. No matter how franticly I peruse my thoughts, there remains nothing. My mind, I finally grasp with shocking clarity, is empty.

I begin to hyperventilate.

There should be something. Anything.

But there isn't.

The unabashedly sobbing boy doesn't seem to notice the loss of the 'reassuring' hand, doesn't seem to notice my sharp intakes of breath or my heaving chest as a muffled scream tears itself from his throat. "Hiei! WHY...? Why don't you remember me...? It's—" His voice cracks, and his sentence is cut off by a strangled sort of gasp.

He gulps and continues. "It's...it's not fair! ...Why?" He whispers his question, and it is clear he is not asking me.

He stands up and wipes his eyes with the back of his hands, still unaware of how my breaths come in shallow, quick, little hitches.

Then, without any warning, he clamps his hands onto my shoulders, hard, and I cease my panic attack.

And then, without any warning, he starts shaking me violently and without restraint back and forth.

And then he is screaming at me, and I can see that he's trying to hold back more tears already glistening warningly at the corners of his eyes, threatening to spill over. His eyes, closed tight, are giving him away.

I forget about the haze of vacancy I am shrouded in as Kurama shouts, "Damn it, Hiei, WHY? Why did this have to happen to ME? Where do you get off doing this to me? Why did you have to go and—"

But whatever it is that I 'had to go and do,' I do not find out, because at this point another boy comes jogging up to us yelling, "Kurama! Kuraaamaaaa!"

Ugh...he has such a loud voice. I wish he'd shut up. I'm beginning to get a headache. I must be getting a migraine from prolonged exposure to morons. Or repetetive shaking.

Kurama freezes and removes his hands from my shoulders. I am still, immobile, trying to keep up with whatever is going on for at least thirty seconds.

It's insulting and unfair that they should have such an infinitely better grasp of the situation than I do.

I have to struggle to maintain new information as it is thrown at him. I look to Kurama, my salvation in the face of the fresh unknown. He is my only stable memory...

A memory created, pathetically, less than five minutes ago.

Kurama...I must not forget these things like the sound of his voice or the vice-like grip of his hands.

"Kurama, what are you doing?" the other boy is asking.

I, unfortunately, cannot discern whether the new boy is referring to the redhead's rude invasion of my personal space or...maybe Kurama was supposed to be actually doing something?

I wouldn't put it past him to forget whatever purpose he originally had.

"Hey Hiei, you feeling any better?" The newcomer finally notices me, and claps a hand on my shoulder as he reaches us. My shoulders are taking a lot of abuse today.

He looks at me with strange mixture of emotions displayed in the relieved slump of his shoulders and the furrowing his eyebrows in confusion or...pity?

Pity worries me.

I turn to the boy as my conscious mind remembers that I have just been asked, for the third time, if I am ok.

Why will no one tell what is 'wrong' with me? I can't possibly tell them that everything is just peachy keen if I don't have a clue if there is actually something wrong!

And it unfortunately seems that this boy is, like Kurama, incapable of stating his name and relation to me.

The need to know what is so horribly wrong is eating me alive. It's my memory, obviously. These people are all acting as if they know me. And I know that there is something I am not being told.

Why...why don't I know them?

Why can't I remember anything?

"Who are you?" I ask the stranger with a bored expression on my face, meant to hide any trace of the turmoil raging in my head. The boy simply blinks.

What, am I speaking Chinese? It's actually funny, in a way, that I remember how to speak at all.

I start walking away from the two gaping fools, praying for there to be someone, somewhere in this place who can tell me where I am.

Unfortunately, I am only allowed to get about three paces away before the boy yells, "Hiei, where are you going?"

I favor the boy-who-has-no-name with a lovely view of my back as I continue to walk away from him.

How long IS this hall anyway?

I have to keep my mind occupied. Otherwise I'll start panicking again.

Just as I recognize this vital necessity, any thoughts forming in my head are jarred out by the unexpected feel of a hand on my shoulder.

"Hiei." I start at the heavy, serious voice that has an overly-controlled edge to it.

I turn around. "What?"

What was meant to be a heart-stopping glare falls flat as I am startled to see that though Kurama is looking at me with a smile on his face, his eyes are brimming with tears.

"Hiei..."

A lone tear rolls down his cheek. I resist the urge to wipe it away, and for just a second the image of a boy crosses through my vision. The boy's beautiful green eyes are wide and glistening with pent-up anguish. As a tear rolls down his face a small, ghostly, hand reaches up to cup his cheek and brush away the tear, smearing a wet track across his face.

But then the vision dissipates and I shake my head to clear away what in a second Irealize was a memory.

Frantically, I scrunch up my face in a futile effort to remember the brief apparition. But it is like water, quickly slipping away no matter how hard I try to hold on. Still I try in vain to scrape up the last remains of the illusion, but inevitably I am left with nothing...only one determined conclusion.

The now-forgotten memory has left me with a sense of who the boy is whose crying face is so close I could reach out and touch it.

I knew this boy...I knew him, and he was important to me.

Kurama was telling the truth...he really is my friend.

"Hiei," he starts again, acting as if the tear is nonexistent. He then asks me a simple question. Kindly, and still with that ridiculously fake smile plastered onto his face.

"You…you can't remember anything, can you?"