Yukina

Chapter 7: With Eyes Wide Open

I don't know how to swim...and I don't even care. My psyche keeps replaying images of a faceless, horribly disfigured body trapped in a mirror. On the flip side, trying to break through, is the little boy…

The little boy who is me. The little boy who grew up with no mind. The little boy who grew up with no memories.

The little boy pounding on the glass and screaming and screaming and screaming and screaming his lungs out and the corpse is opening its bloody eyes and crying and screaming and screaming and screaming and screaming and blasting in my eardrums and my head is pounding and I can't think and I can't breathe and my eyes are wide and unseeing.

There is something I want to remember...something I need to recall...

And I can't see it.

Why can't I see it?

I exhale. A long stream of tiny bubbles issues from my partly opened mouth. I watch them float gently upwards, and reach the clear surface.

My head hurts. My ears hurt.

My eyes droop. If this is the end...if this is it... But it just can't be! I haven't even started to remember! I can't die! Not yet! Not until…I see her again. Not until I remember who she is...

An alien emotion rises in my chest. I want someone to reach out to me. I want someone to wrap their arms around me and tell me everything is ok. I want someone to care about me. I want someone there.

Something collides with the pond's serene surface, destroying the calm and churning the lifeless buoyancy around me. White bubbles cascade around me. I let my eyes close and my body go slack.

I know I should be trying harder. I know there is something I must do before I go, but I'm so tired.

I feel dizzy...

My eyes…they hurt.

An arm wraps around me and I open an eye. I can't breathe. I see red.

But then the red...clears. The water pushes it away and I see an eye.

One beautiful, clear, green eye, staring at me. The redness swirls around the green, framing it.

As my real eye drops closed the image imprinted on my mind's eye is not green and red.

It's red and blue.

"Hiei!"

Hn…?

"Hiei! Hiei please!" There is a pressure on my abdomen, and liquid gushes from my parted lips. I cannot open my eyes.

"HIEI!" I am not stupid. I know that voice belongs to—

Wha…!

A pair of lips closes over mine, blowing air into my lungs. I sit straight up, instinctively pushing Kurama off of me. I cough up dry air…devoid of any liquid, weirdly enough.

That was uncomfortable.

I blink a few times and focus on Kurama. He is smiling.

I grab the back of his hair, drawing his face closer to mine.

I want to know now. I need to know now. I need to know everything.

Right now.

I practically hiss out the single syllable I can before my voice fails me. "Tell—" I demand scathingly, and then I start coughing again. I look down and squeeze my eyes shut. My grip loosens. Kurama grabs my shoulders and presses his forehead to mine.

"Ok…it's ok, Hiei. Everything will be alright…I'm here…it's ok." He moves one of his arms off my shoulder to my back, where he starts rubbing in small, counterclockwise circles.

I want someone to wrap their arms around me and tell me everything's ok.

But now I realize, with disappointment—and a pang of guilt—weighing down in the pit of my stomach like a thousand stones, that this is not what I want. I do not need Kurama. He is not the one I need to be there. I want him to be, but he just isn't. I…like this feeling, it feels good, but it's—

It's not the one thing I so desperately need. It's not the thing that is missing. It's not the reassurance I have to have before I die. It's not the reason I did not want to drown. It's not the thing that so craftily evades my minds grasp. And it's not the one thing they are hiding.

The hidden secret does not lie in Kurama's embrace.

Kurama is not the one I need.

Kurama is not the one I want to wrap his arms around me and tell me everything is ok. Kurama is not the one who I need to care about me. Kurama is not the one who needs to be there...to be the one to know I'm there.

And I can't see it. My eyes hurt too much. I can't force them open.

I can't see the one I need. I can't see the one who hides from me. It's staring me right in the face, but I'm too blind to see with my eyes squeezed shut tight.

I can't see...not until my eyes open.

I can feel myself push Kurama away, ignoring the look of hurt that has manifested itself on his face. My eyes droop, as if drugged, and I move my hand up to my forehead in a gesture of exasperation.

"Kurama…?"

"Hiei…" This he half-mumbles, looking away from me. He may regret getting so close to me. It put him within striking range. Now all I need to do is say one little phrase to shatter his carefully constructed life.

"I need you to tell me something."

He frowns, and his eyes go blank. He is a master of masking what he feels so that even I cannot see. He is hiding something, guarding it very carefully. But he is afraid he might slip. Afraid he might tell me what I should not know. What I should be able to figure out. What my mind does everything it can to make me remember.

"Yes?"I can tell he is going to be choosing his words very carefully. The slightest thing could give him away, even though he is well aware that I am scrutinizing his every syllable.

"I want you to tell me everything."

He says nothing, waiting for me to continue, to elaborate.

"What are you hiding from me?" Straight up, blatant questioning. It's probably the only approach that will work.

But he's doesn't answer. He is just staring at me.

What will I do if he says no?

What will I do if can't find out?

"Ok…alright."

Now it is my turn to stare. He said ok? Ok?

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, simultaneously opening his mouth and his eyes, unleashing an unyielding flow of words. The pieces of a puzzle I have not even half-constructed.

"Hiei. First you must understand that I cannot possibly educate you in all the ways of the world we live in. I can only tell you about yourself. If you are able to understand this, I can begin."

I nod mutely. This is it!

"You...are a demon. But not just any ordinary demon...you are a crossbreed of fire-demon and Koorime. You are know to most only as the infamous 'Forbidden Child.' The bastard child of Hina, the ice apparition, who, I am sorry to say, died years ago.

"You have never been accepted or loved. You have lived centuries trusting no one, associating only with criminals in short-lived alliances. Because of this, I cannot tell you who you truly are. There are things I do not know, and now never will.

"Recently you took it upon yourself to enlist the help of myself and another demon, Gouki, in stealing three treasured items from a place known as Reikai. You succeeded, but your plan was foiled by Yusuke, whom you have met. You and I escaped death or eternal imprisonment on the condition that we would join Yusuke in his quest as a spirit detective, helping him to destroy evil. Gouki was killed. We are still on probation, though you are probably free from all prior duties in light of new circumstances.

"Since we joined Yusuke, the Spirit Detective, we have been through many, many obstacles together. We've fought some of the most powerful demons imaginable, and you have shown great affection towards those you claim you could not care less for. I think you may have guessed, I am one of them... We were a bit...closer than the others.

"Then, a few months ago you...you hit your head. You were—I mean, we found you on the rocks at the bottom of a sheer cliff. We thought you wouldn't make it. You split your skull open. You were a mess. There was blood everywhere...that cliff was over a hundred feet high. There aren't many demons who could have survived that fall.

"But you did. And Genkai healed you. She's an old warrior who cares for this temple and she is the one who has trained Yusuke. She is also very powerful, and possesses healing energy, to which you owe your life. She was able to recover your memories of the building blocks...basic functioning, if you will. Things like speech, motor skills, and ageneral knowledge of the things around you. You know what water is, and fire, and houses and trees and humans and demons. Unfortunately, your memories that are specific only to you could not be recovered, partially because of your Jagan eye.

"Your Jagan is a mystical third eye which you had implanted in your forehead to—Which you had implanted in your forehead. It gives you the gift of telepathy, along with greater life force and battle energy. I do not know the full extent of your Jagan's power, since you were never one for explaining things, and Jagan eyes are very, very rare. It is said that the pain one must go through to obtain a Jagan is so excruciating that it kills most who attempt to possess one.

"The Jagan shielded many of the things your mind had built protective barriers against. Your deepest, darkest secrets will be forever safe and unknown.

"And...however sorry I am to say this...in some cases, it is...better that you are left in the dark. I am sorry Hiei. But there are some things that are known...that I cannot tell you.

"There are things that must remain lost...

"Things better left unknown."

He stares at me apologetically, looking like he is going to cry. I stare right back, trying to absorb everything that I have just been told.

These are the pieces of my lost soul. This is my life...

But then there is still the unsatisfied ache...still the yearning...

Still the desire to know the things I will never know. The things I cannot see...the things only I can see...what I can only see...

With my eyes wide open.