To be optimistic- he had known that it would take him a few years to find her again outside of his internet searches and recruiting Koenma to help him. And by then he had accomplished quite a bit.

He had graduated from university with several degrees. Gotten a job at his father's company, and even worked his way up through the ranks and taken over as CEO when his father had suffered a severe heart attack and had had to step down for health reasons. And while it had been more than a few years...

His savior, Miss Kurosaki was never far from his mind. And had in part had been the driving force that had helped him to achieve everything that he'd wanted to achieve before he tried to find her again.

It had taken him some time to carefully sort through his feelings pertaining to the girl. But after a while he had managed to figure out exactly why he was so fixated on her.

Thankfully, Koenma had been able to keep track of her over the years once he explained everything to him.

The toddler had been damned near ecstatic about helping once he was informed of what had transpired. Especially since his friends had all been present to hear about his sort-of-death and had nearly flipped out on them both in outrage.

So, Koenma had kept him well informed of where Miss Kurosaki was and what she was doing with herself since the day that she had saved his life.

This evening was no different. The infant prince had contacted him at the usual time and told him that she had moved back to Japan recently after spending a while studying overseas, and her home was located within several blocks of his own.

He'd also sent him a new pic of her since that was part of the deal that he'd made with the prince. To prevent him from going to hunt her down, he had to have some sort of evidence that she was truly alright. Koenma had been sort of reluctant to agree to even the idea of taking her picture. To him it had felt creeper-ish.

But Kurama had been firm. The information was one thing. But a picture of her whole, healthy, and happy was another thing entirely. His other half's obsessive side wouldn't be satisfied with anything less given the amount of distance between them.

So Koenma had hesitantly agreed.

He was staring at the latest picture, noting that the girl had grown into a lovely young woman during their time apart. There were subtle differences in her appearance that he found intriguing.

For one, she wore glasses. Thin, black wire framed ones that fit her appearance to perfection. Her hair was also redder now than strawberry blonde. Though it still held some traces of the blonde in it, even he could tell that she must have tried dying it at some point and the dye was finally starting to fade. Leaving her with some nice blond highlights.

Not only that, but he could see that she had changed up her clothing a little bit. While he was pretty fond of her usual leather jacket and outfits, he found that her long sleeved purple shirt and jeans were just as nice. Especially since the picture had been taken while she had been at work.

She had been on one of the ladder's that was braced against one of the large shelves and had been handing a book to someone at the time that the picture had been taken of her.

So, he had a very clear view of her face- her glasses had slid down the bridge of her nose a little bit, and her smile... It was warm enough to steal his breath for a moment.

Oh, if only she would smile like that at him. He thought fondly as he laid the picture aside and grabbed the rest of the information that Koenma had collected for him.

He went through the usual stuff.

Checking out the information on her health, checking to see if her living conditions and other things that may be of concern to him, had changed. Thankfully she was still okay in those areas.

Her health status hadn't changed at all. She was still healthy. Her living conditions were a bit less than ideal due to where she lived. But she still managed to pay her bills on time, get food every week, etc.

She still had contact with her friends and family- so there wasn't any stress there. Or so he assumed.

And honestly, he was more than a little please to learn that her new job was at a library. Her last job had been at a construction site. And while he was a firm believer in equality- both at work and outside of it- he hadn't liked the fact that she had hurt herself multiple times while working.

He had drawn the line when she'd wound up nearly being crushed to death by some falling beams while on the job.

Thus, his utter happiness to know that she was working someplace quiet. And more importantly, safe. The fact that she was working at a place full of books appealed to him for a multitude of reasons. The previously mentioned stuff, notwithstanding.

He had grown out of a lot of things since becoming an adult, but books and his love of them, hadn't been one of those things. And since he had a day or two off starting tomorrow...he'd drop by the library and get some new books to read and maybe if he was lucky, he'd be leaving the building with a certain young woman's phone number.

Gently closing the file, he sighed and then stood up so that he could go and get ready for bed. Tomorrow promised to be a trying day for him emotionally. But he couldn't help but hope that things would still go well.