Yukina

Chapter 5: Vermilion

I hear voices…

"What…supposed…tell him?"

"…make…thing up…"

"…do that! …was his…!"

"…better this way… Trust me."

"Why…it have to be…way?"

"…couldn't save… I'm so… so… sorry…"

"…may be…only chance…he has…remember…"

"…too bad…can't tell…matter what…"

"…we tell…then…?"

"Nothing…maybe…won't ask…"

"Let's hope…"

"Yes…"

…Which are not in my head.

I snap my eyes wide open not that I realize the voices are not a figment of my sleeping mind. I sit upright and whirl around to face the sounds, expecting to see…I don't know. What was I expecting to see?

What was I expecting to see that got my heart pounding so fast? I don't know. I felt threatened. Uncomfortable that I had been sleeping while there were others who were alert in the same room as I.

I narrow my eyes, and my hand flies to my belt. I grasp at nothing. I don't even know what I thought would be there. It seemed like the right thing to do. It was an instinct.

I growl and snap my head to the left, where the beings the voices belong to are, and suddenly my head feels as if it is about to explode. Blood pounds in my skull—like something is mashing viciously away inside my skull with a mallet—before it stops. All that is left is a dull sort of throbbing. I must have sat up too quickly.

"Hiei! You're awake!" says the too-loud voice I've recently acquainted myself with. It is 'Yusuke.'

Oh no…now I remember.

The fire and yelling and frustration and screaming and screaming and screaming and scream—

"Hiei, are you alright?" I am jarred out of my thoughts by a soft voice. I slowly turn my head a fraction of an inch to the right and see a head of vibrant red hair.

Kurama.

I feel my pulse go down, and the throbbing in my eardrums slows. I am calm.

Well, not exactly, but there is something comforting about the redhead's presence. Maybe it is the way he speaks softly even when I am about to break down, creating the false illusion that everything is all right. That everything will be ok.

"Hiei…?" Oh, right. He asked me a question. I can't remember what it was though.

I can't remember. Just not being able to recall that small thing has brought the rhythm of the pounding in my ears straight back up.

What is wrong with me? Why can't I remember?

I am distantly aware that my breathing has become erratic. I can hear it. 'Calm down!' I shout mentally at myself. But I am not responding. I can't make myself calm! I can't stop it!

The heat…swirling vapors of flame around me…NO! Why can't I control it!

Why is this happening to me!

Luckily, it seems Kurama, at least, has prepared for this—whatever 'this' is—in advance. He practically launches himself off the mat he had been sitting on. He had been talking to a few other people who are currently sitting immobile in their seats, open-mouthed, gaping at me. He runs straight through the flames that have suddenly sprung up around me, and grabs the hair at the back of my head. He kneels, and pulls me half-onto his lap, preventing me from moving.

"Hiei! Open your mouth!" he commands. I willing comply. I am beginning to rethink my earlier assumption…that Kurama is stupid. Because as he runs a hand through his hair, withdrawing four seeds, it seems like…he is the only one who knows what is going on, and how to deal with it. Like he is the only one who has any control.

And I haven't got any at all.

That is probably why I feel marginally better now, even as I hear roaring flames surging around me and feel acutely the pain of the nothingness in my mind.

He makes a fist, crushing the seeds, and opens his hand above my open mouth. Green powder falls onto my tongue, and it tastes weird…reminiscent of sawdust.

But I swallow it anyway, and the flames turn green, flare once, then disappear.

I feel better, too. The throbbing has ceased. I feel calm. I feel in control. I can control myself. I feel secure enough to open my mouth and say a small portion of what I want to ask.

"How…?"

Kurama releases my hair, bringing his hand around to brush away a few strands of hair that have fallen into my line of vision. Then he smiles at me. But it isn't a happy smile. It is almost…wistful. Sad.

Kurama's face suddenly gets fuzzy, and when I blink, it isn't his face anymore. Instead it is the face of a young girl. She is wearing the same exact smile as Kurama…the same longing expression. She has beautiful, large, red eyes with long lashes, and long blue-green hair, held in place with a crystalline hair ornament. It is the same shade as her eyes.

Her eyes…remind me of someone I've seen before…

My eyes widen as I make the connection. The boy I saw! The one who grabbed Kurama's arm!

Then I blink again and the red eyes turn green, the aquamarine hair coming loose from its tie and turning a brilliant shade of red. Kurama's smile hardens under my gaze. It becomes forced. Fake. He stands, helping me to my feet at the same time. He leads me over to the table and sits me down next to him. No one says anything. Then he turns to me and asks me a question I find so overwhelming, so unanswerable…that I want to collapse. Somehow, though…somehow I am not upset.

"Hiei…what's wrong?"

I say nothing. I am searching for a way to go about answering the question when Kurama answers his own question for me.

"You want to know why you feel blocked, correct?"

I gape at him. He phrased exactly what I am feeling in one simple sentence. I nod dumbly.

"Hey," says a boy I have never seen before, yet somehow I already don't like anyway. "Did he…forget words? I mean, can he talk?" The boy has a deep—almost raspy—voice. It sounds…unintelligent.

"I can," I snap, before Kurama has a chance to answer for me. I know he was going to, too. I saw his jaw muscles tense, just like they would if he were about to open his mouth to speak.

They are all staring at me. The stupid-sounding boy is opening and closing his mouth, probably at a loss of what to say. He looks like a dying fish. I turn my head slightly to look Kurama—the only one, for some reason, that I feel I can communicate with—in the eye. I simply stare at him, willing him to read my mind.

What is going on…?

Kurama jumps a bit, and opens his mouth to say something. Then he shuts it so quickly I can almost hear his jaws clamp shut. He blinks a few times, and begins to be the only useful person I have seen since I woke up.

"Hiei. You have amnesia." I blink. He did read my mind.

"Does he even know what amnesia is?" asks the dumb boy.

"Of course he does, you idiot! He hasn't forgotten everything!" yells a girl with a cigarette in her mouth.

Yusuke laughs. "Yeah, he probably just wants someone to explain it 'cause he doesn't know what it means!"

A girl with large, doe-like eyes then says, "Yusuke, do you know what 'amnesia' means…?"

Yusuke shuts up.

Of course I know what amnesia is. Come to think of it, it's quite possibly the most obvious solution to my predicament in the world. I assume I was just so...upset, that I was not thinking rationally. I cannot believe that I did not realize what was so blatantly obvious that now I want to scream.

"How. Did. This. Happen?" I say, anger pouring into every syllable. A blue-haired girl sitting across from me cringes.

"Hiei," says Kurama, still in that same quiet voice, "There is no need to be angry. We're going to help you."

I feel a surge of anger, strangely muted. How can he possibly help? Is he going to find my memories for me? No, I didn't think so.

"I will ask again," I say in a voice that clearly suggests I want to kill something. "How. Did. I. Get. This. Way?" I say it very slowly, deliberately, as if they were very small children that need things to be told to them slowly so that they will understand. Also, this way, I will probably not start screaming my head off.

"Hiei. Calm down. You hit your head. I'm sure that your memories are locked away somewhere in your subconscious, and eventually you will recover them," Kurama explains. Then he smiles at me. It is the same wistful smile that he was wearing before, and for one moment I see red eyes hidden behind his green ones.

The eyes are the same as the girl I saw before…only this time…this time she's crying. And one of her eyes…

On eye is split open…bleeding.

But I blink and Kurama is back. "That is not good enough. I want to know how this happened. People do not forget their entire life from a bump on the head. Tell me why I am this way," I command, trying to push away the disturbing image of the large, red eyes. I glare at everyone around the table, taking a second to memorize each of them as I glance at their faces.

Yusuke, who doesn't look scared at all, merely defiant. The stupid boy, who looks confused and angry. A pretty brunette girl with brown eyes who looks like she pities me. Pity. Huh. Then a blue-haired, pink-eyed girl who looks just about ready to sprint out of the room screaming. I sneer at her, and she visibly pales. Next is an old woman, who looks bored, and finally the girl smoking a cigarette, who is looking at the idiotic boy with an annoyed expression on her face—this girl is all right.

And then there is Kurama, sitting next to me.

It does not escape me that there is another mat at this table. A mat next to the idiotic boy. At a table that looks as if it is a kind of meeting place. I would bet almost anything that someone is missing, and it is not only the empty seat that has tipped me off.

The anguish of loss is thick in the air. I can practically smell it. I don't know why, I'll just put it down to a gut reaction. Something is just so obviously not right. Something is being hidden from me, barely suppressed in their gazes.

Something is missing. Something more than memories.

I can see pity touching the edges of the various stares directed at me, and not just the brown-eyed girl's. They feel sorry for me…and not just for my empty mind. It's just as if...

It's just as if someone's died.

"…couldn't save… I'm so… so… sorry…"

My dream…they were talking about someone who had died. Could that have been…?

I feel inclined to ask them about this.

"Somebody's dead, huh?" Nothing that is in me will allow the reaction to this comment pass. Every pair of eyes widens, even the ever-collected Kurama's. They exchange fleeting, harried glances, and Kurama shakes his head. Actually, it's not so much of a shake as it is a quick jerking of the head a fraction of an inch to the right and then a fraction of an inch back.

But it seems everyone gets the message, because they shift uneasily in their seats before returning to their previous concerned staring.

"No, Hiei. No one has died. Why…do you ask?" Kurama says, a smile on his face. This is a fake smile. One put in place for everyone else to see, to make them believe everything is all right.

No. This smile is for me, for my sake, to convince me that everything is all right.

"I can see it," I reply blankly, "In the way you look at me. You pity me."

"Hiei, of course we feel badly for you, you've lost all your—" I cut off the girl who's spoken, the one on whose face the pity is most clearly displayed.

"No." My eyes widen slightly, as blue hair and red eyes fill up my vision. "You look like someone died. You look like you pity me for losing something else…"

Something more than memories… hangs unspoken in the air.