Warnings: Some suggestive content in the first section. Vomiting and blood (at the same time) in the third section. Names in first section have been changed for the sake of privacy.


Lucky Child

Chapter 38:

"Word Vomit"


Naomi, fingers warm and lingering, traced a path from my sternum to my bellybutton. My diaphragm hitched; her head jostled on my shoulder, drawing one of her devious giggles.

"Tickles," I said.

She did it again, chin digging into my chest, but I didn't mind. I moved my hand across her bare back in wide circles, just happy she was here. Even my crackling plastic dorm mattress felt comfortable just then.

"I knew this would happen," she said.

I craned my head to look down at her, painfully aware I'd probably just created half a dozen double chins for myself. One of Naomi's dark box braids slipped off her head, landing across my nearest breast. She didn't bother to gather it back up with the rest. The radiator in the corner of my dorm room hummed, keeping the January winter outside at bay. Her body pressed soft against my side was warmer, though.

"First day in McDonald's class," she said. "Zing. Sparks. I just knew"

"I mean, the fact that I couldn't stop staring at you probably helped," I said.

"True. But we've been dancing around each other for months."

She pushed off of me, sitting up on her elbows to look around, body precariously balanced on the edge of the narrow mattress. Somehow her false eyelashes hadn't come off in the events (the, um, rather athletic events) of the past hour. She looked like a model, frankly. But more importantly, she was smart. And kind. And wonderful. Her parents where from Ethiopia, she'd grown up in Britain, and she spoke three languages. Infinitely out of my monolingual, plain-girl-from-backwoods-Texas league. How I'd managed to catch her eye I couldn't say.

"Gotta say, though," she said, eyeing the posters crowning and lining my lofted bed, "I didn't think we'd have an audience like this."

My eyes fluttered shut, cheeks heating with embarrassment. This was the first time she'd been in my room, completely unexpected, months of flirtation and long glances and wondering finally come to a pleasant conclusion. She'd had a boyfriend at the start of the school year, after all. Nothing more tragic than falling for a straight girl. The kiss she'd laid on me in the basement of Sigma Nu had tasted like Blue Moon beer and gasped surprise.

This was the first time she'd been in my room, and all of my Yu Yu Hakusho posters were staring at us.

I'd been too distracted when we stumbled in, shedding clothes, to worry about my nerdiness showing (not when I had so much else, stretch marks and small breasts and cellulite, showing at the time to worry about), but anxiety flared bright and hot just then. Hiei, Kurama, Kuwabara, Yusuke—staring at us while we hooked up. If only Yusuke was real and could see through those painted eyes. I could only begin to fathom the perverted comments he'd make, if he was real.

Oh, Christ. She must think I'm the biggest nerd on the planet. My room was papered with YYH swag. I had figurines, posters, trading cards mounted in frames, even a doll of Hiei on my bed. And now here she was, lying next to me in my bed, dark and glorious eyes cataloging every last scrap of my nerdy hobby with a bemused smile. When she gathered the Hiei doll into her chest, nestling him right between her breasts, my cheeks went volcanic.

"So, it's a cartoon?" she asked.

"Um. Anime."

"So, a Japanese cartoon."

"Yeah. Ever seen one?"

"Nope." Naomi paused; her eyes brightened. "Oh. Yeah, I've seen that Spirited Away movie, actually." She smiled, encouraging and warm, the delicate golden hoop in her nose sparkling. "It was good. Really good."

"Yeah. Hayao Miyazaki is the best director. Only anime to win an Academy Award, which is cool Anime is criminally underrepresented in the international awards circuit, but recently directors like Miyazaki have been changing the game. It's just a shame that an art form like—"

Oh my god, was I nervous-babbling about anime? So embarrassing. I fidgeted and sat up, leaning against the cold cinderblock wall, feet jutting off the edge of the bed. I pulled a blanket across my lap; Naomi immediately plopped her head onto my thighs, toying with a strand of my long hair with her glossy pink nails.

"So," she said, gesturing with her free hand at the posters. "What's that one called?"

"Um. Yu Yu Hakusho."

"What's it about?"

Was she humoring me? Was I boring her? Wondering, I gave her a brief description of my absolute favorite work of fiction: punk dies saving a kid, right in episode one, and then gets brought back to life by Spirit World. She cackled when I recited the intro to the first episode.

"One hell of an opener," she said. "It sounds pretty cool."

It's awkward, how much her acceptance thrilled me.

Her finger traced the edge of a poster. "So these are the main characters?

"Yeah." I pointed at them one by one, somewhat at ease now that I'd earned her approval. "Kuwabara, Yusuke, Kurama, Hiei."

"Got a favorite?"

"Kuwabara. Or Hiei. They're my top two," came my instantaneous reply. But then I felt those painted eyes on me and a tiny bit of guilt gnawed at my heart like a vicious guinea pig. "But Kurama's cool, and Yusuke is just adorable. They're all great."

Her nose crinkled again, amused. "So they're all your favorite."

"It's hard to pick," I admitted. "They're my boys."

Naomi blinked at me. My face flushed. Oh, god, the weirdly affectionate emphasis I'd placed on that last word—

"I'm sorry I didn't take the posters down sooner," I blurted. "I meant to, before anything like this—"

"No." She shook her head, skull rocking against my thighs. "I like that you're passionate. And my roommate has exclusively decorated her side of the room with Harry Potter, so it's not like I don't get it. People bond with certain series that speak to them." Her eyes slid to the poster above my head, searching. "Can I ask why this series, though?"

"I guess it was just there for me in a dark place." I hesitated, but decided to tell her anyway. "When I was 14, I only had one friend. He died in a skiing accident."

Her full lips parted. "Oh. Oh, I'm so sorry."

"Thanks. It happened about this time of year, not that it matters." I shook my head, trying not to think too hard about Jeffrey, or the anniversary of his death only three days away. That was a story for another day, another time. Keep it light, girl. Don't ruin the afterglow so soon. "He liked this show, too. We bonded over it. So when times got rough, my boys were there for me. Just gave me courage and support, you know?"

Naomi smiled, not telling me to shut up, not teasing me for an attachment to fictional characters. My roommates hadn't been so kind. Kelsie and Margaret made snide remarks about the posters all the time—not to my face, but behind my back. They weren't as quiet as they thought they were, when they gossiped in the bathroom together. I'd thought about taking the posters down and eventually decided to leave them up, mostly out of spite.

But Naomi didn't mind.

Man. I'd really lucked out with her, hadn't I?

"This one, Yusuke?" I said, pointing at the poster at the head of my bed renewed enthusiasm. "He's a dumbass punk who'd die for his friends. Never fails to make me laugh, cheer me up."

I moved my finger to the short figure in black at Yusuke's side. "And Hiei gets prickly, but I think he's lonely on the inside. He doesn't show how he feels much, and always seems strong on the outside, but inside he depends on his friends. Reminds me to depend on them, too, when I get too introverted."

Next I gestured at the red-haired boy on Yusuke's left. "Kurama's a bit of a puzzle. He's older than he looks, and very serious, but I think his friends got him to loosen up. They taught him to trust. Sometimes I need to be better at that, too."

Last, I pointed at the tall boy at the back, with his goofy smile and poofy hair. "And Kuwabara…he's the kindest person there is, with so much heart. He never gives up and never backs down, and would die for the people he cares for." I let the hand drop, smiling at my boys, fictional though they were. "That guy gives me a lot of courage. They all do, in their own ways."

Like a lot of things that night, it was almost embarrassing how much Yu Yu Hakusho meant to me. It was almost impossible to describe how affectionate I felt toward the boys, how much I looked forward to writing and reading about them, how badly I needed reminders of them in my life. Pathological, basically. Obsession, more or less. I'd never found words to convey just how deeply I bonded with Yu Yu Hakusho—words that didn't make me sound like a nutcase, that is. Hell, I'd said my favorite characters out loud and then felt guilty for not naming the others. Clearly my feelings for them all ran deep.

But hey. Naomi was right. Other people loved Harry Potter much the same way I loved Yu Yu Hakusho, with loving ferocity and encyclopedic knowledge of canon and obsessions with collecting memorabilia. What was the difference between my obsession with Yu Yu Hakusho, really, and an obsession with Harry Potter, aside from the series' respective popularity levels?

"You talk about them like you know them."

I jumped, momentarily forgetting where I was, who I was with. Naomi giggled on my lap.

"Oh. Um. Sorry for ranting," I said. "I know I get really emotional about—"

But she shook her head again. "Don't apologize. It's not a bad thing. You're passionate. I like the sound of them, and I like you, so…" She shrugged, lowering her lashes with a coy smile. "Rant away."

Mouth suddenly very, very dry, I said, "I like you, too."

Naomi giggled. "As much as Kuwadara?"

"Kuwabara." I leaned down to kiss her, to thank her. "And you're getting there."

We didn't talk about Yu Yu Hakusho much more that night. Too busy, too caught up in exploring each other for the first time, after eons of guessing games. But later she asked to watch the show with me, and even when we broke up many months later, she didn't use my attachment against me. She never made fun of my love for my boys—not ever, not once.

It's odd, how much that tiny gesture meant to me.

Others haven't been so kind.


I hadn't played Ding-Dong-Ditch since my childhood with Yusuke, and I'd never planned to play that game again as an adult—but here I was, physical age 14, cumulative age 40, standing on the sidewalk in front of Minamino's house, preparing to do just that.

Minamino lived in a small house, brick, with white shutters and a green front door. The modest home had a second level, no doubt to allow for maximum space in this cramped suburb. Although the houses next door pressed almost wall-to-wall with their neighbors, all had a bit of yard out front. Half of Minamino's postage stamp yard boasted some of the most well-tended flowers I'd ever seen (because this was Minamino's house, and anything less would have been severely disappointing). A cherry tree with thick branches occupied the other half of the yard. It was too early in the season for cherry blossoms, of course.

Much too early for cherry blossoms.

And yet, as twilight fell around me, I beheld a riot of blossoms so magnificent, they put the city's best-kept trees in front of City Hall to absolute shame.

The perfume surrounded me in a sweet cloud as I stood there, staring at the tree and the house in turns. Doubtless the flowering tree was Kurama's doing. Did he want to view it one last time before he died? Maybe he'd looked at it with his mother, crafting a lovely memory for Shiori before he abandoned her for good.

Just speculation, but speculation I felt confident making.

Eventually I took a deep, perfumed breath and scurried up the sidewalk, beneath the limbs of the tree and the petals falling gently from them. A few caught in my hair, dusting my shoulders with pink, but I didn't brush them away. I had a job to do. No delays, Keiko. Just put down the bento, ring the bell, and run like fucking hell.

Too bad it didn't work out like that.

My parents named me with a sense of irony, no doubt.

Identifying the location of the doorbell before I even stepped foot on the porch, I walked up and set the bento right in the middle of the welcome mat (patterned with roses in the corners, because of course it fucking was). I rang the bell with a jab of frantic finger and turned to leave, barely even pausing in my steps. Smooth. Very smooth, indeed.

But not smooth enough.

I'd only gotten ten feet away when I heard the door open at my back.

"Yukimura?" he said.

I stopped, heart leaping into my mouth. I heard another click as the door shut. Had he gone inside? Hopefully he'd gone inside. Hopefully he didn't try to talk to me. He'd certainly made no effort to talk to me since he'd dumped me over a phone call.

Slowly, head turning in fractions, I looked over my shoulder.

Minamino stood on the porch, arms crossed, green eyes hooded and dark.

Words leapt into my mouth, nestling next to my beating heart.

"Amagi's oven caught fire so she called me in a panic and asked me to bring you dinner and I didn't come here to pester you, I swear."

One dark red brow lifted at my vomited words. Green eyes lowered, down to the bento sitting at his feet. The brow resettled as his skepticism faded.

"I see," he said. He bent at the waist, scooping up the bento and tucking it beneath an arm. With a low bow he said, "Thank you. Good night."

"Have a productive day off from school last week?"

For the second time that day, the words were out of my mouth before I gave them permission to leave. Minamino didn't look perturbed. In fact, he wore the same bland expression he'd pasted on every time our eyes met during the past week: bored, polite, distant, but with an undercurrent of do-not-touch-me standoffishness that kept the fangirls at bay.

Me, though?

It just made me angry—angry that he'd shut me out. Angry that even now he was keeping me at arm's length, mere days before he intended to die. Angry that our friendship apparently meant so little to him, he wouldn't let his walls down even long enough to tell me a proper, in-person goodbye.

I knew he'd shut me out to protect me. That was the most logical reason for his actions. It was a reason that made sense. But my heart felt differently than my head, coals of simmering annoyance fanned into flames of anger thanks to the kindling of his placid expression.

Not that I'd let any of my emotions show on my face. I matched his look bland smile for bland smile, holding the air of strangers between us like a shield.

Voice a pleasant murmur, he asked, "Why do you ask?"

"No reason." I smiled at him, chipper and bright. "I just hope your stolen time was fruitful, that's all."

That veiled reference got a reaction out of him at last, green eyes flying open. My name left his mouth in a gasp. "Yukimura—!"

But I was already turning, walking away with a spring in my step. Ha! Served him right, getting knocked off balance. Payback for the bouquet.

"Bye!" I said over my shoulder. "See you in school!"

Kurama—because I was definitely dealing with him now—didn't let me get far. I'd taken a scant four steps when I felt his hand close on my arm, tight as a vice and getting only tighter. He yanked me to a halt so hard my shoulder wrenched, flash of pain like lightning on a hot night. Kurama loomed over me with every inch of his taller height, glaring with white teeth bared. My heart stuttered and I gasped on reflex, trying to pull away.

He would not let go.

In a distant, lucid part of my brain, I realized I was dealing with a fox—not a high school boy, not a demon in human skin—a fox who'd scented prey and intended to taste blood.

And I was the hapless rabbit he'd scented on the trail.

"One day," he said, tone growling lower and sharper than I'd ever heard it, "one day we will stop dancing around each other, Yukimura." He pulled me closer; I could smell him, evergreen and mint and sweet earth, a scent I would've found pleasant in any scenario save this one. "One day, you will be honest with me."

I should've run, probably. I should've screamed, and run, and never looked back, because his teeth looked sharp all of a sudden and why-oh-why was I waring my red hoodie of all things tonight? He was as fox, almost a wolf, and the allegory was too clear to ignore.

Like I said: I should have run.

I didn't.

Instead—because I have no preservation instinct whatsoever—I glared right back at him, baring my dull human teeth like they were as impressive as his own.

"Oh really?" I said, feigning overstated surprise. "I will be honest with you? And when, exactly, will that be? Because as far as I'm aware, you're like a toy in a fucking happy meal!"

His lips closed over his teeth as he blinked, pulling away so he could gain a holistic view of my face. "I'm like a what?" he said.

"Like a toy in a happy meal," I repeated. I leaned toward him, smile surely deranged. "Available for a limited time."

Another veiled reference, one he was too smart not to understand. His lips pulled back once more as he closed this distance between us, a game of tug-of-war that used my arm as rope.

"What are you implying, Yukimura?" he asked, tone dangerous despite its silk.

"Nothing." I said. "Nothing at all."

His smile chilled me. "We both know that's a lie."

"Maybe so. But I don't owe you honesty." And suddenly I wasn't angry anymore—just sad, ache in my throat rising hot and sharp. "It's not like we're friends."

My voice cracked on that last word.

Once more—but for entirely different reasons—Kurama's eyes widened. His hand loosened around my arm. I pulled away, rubbing at where he'd grabbed me. He didn't say anything for a second. Kurama chewed on empty air, staring at me and my suddenly watering eyes.

It wasn't often I saw the fox uncertain, but now…he looked at a loss for words.

Maybe I should help him out.

"A friend wouldn't push me away like this," I said, hating how gummy my voice sounded, hating the burgeoning tears pricking at my eyes. "A friend wouldn't tell me goodbye with a bouquet."

"Keiko." My name, my given name, sounded foreign in his mouth. "Keiko, I—"

"No. Save it." I turned from him, scouring my face with the end of my red sleeve. When I scrubbed away the unshed tears, I turned back, face as resolute as I could make it. Time to say goodbye and just walk away, Keiko. You've said far more than you intended, and enough was enough.

But when I saw the look on Kurama's face, the words building on my tongue fell to ruin.

"I'm sorry," Kurama said.

I'd seen many of Kurama's faces. Some I'd seen for the first time that night. Just then I saw yet another new expression. Haggard, lean, his follow cheeks looked like chasms in the fire of the dying sun, eyes crystalline with the most brittle expression I had ever witnessed on a living creature. His smile, sad and frail, embowed with apology and regret, looked like an open wound.

"Perhaps I don't know how to treat friends," he murmured. "I confess I haven't made many in this life." His head inclined, smile softened to a gash half-healed. "Regardless. I am grateful to have counted you among that number."

We held each other's gazes until my eyes stung, and I had to blink back tears.

"You, too." I hated the way my voice cracked again, marking me the emotional sap I was. I shoved a hand into the pocket of my hoodie and pulled out an object that lay within. "I made this when I was a bit more level-headed. I wasn't sure if I should leave it, and today decided I wasn't going to give it to you, after all…but whatever." I thrust the thing toward him. "Here. For you."

Kurama stepped toward me, movements delicate, as if approaching a skittish deer. The bits of glued-together paper I'd cut from magazines—tied around the middle with a little red ribbon— crackled lightly beneath his fingers. He pulled the papers toward him, studying.

He closed his eyes.

"Look. Sorry I yelled," I said, voice as gruff as Kuwabara's. "I'm just frustrated, but I'll respect your wishes."

He swallowed. I saw his throat move even in the fading light. Above him, the sakura tree shed blossoms on the cool wind. A few dusted Kurama's hair like falling snow. A single petal landed on the object in his hand, crowning the fake flowers with their living counterpart—sort of.

The bouquet I'd crafted from photographs of flowers (since, unlike Kurama, I can't grow plants out of season) didn't depict sakura blossoms. Rather, it depicted chrysanthemum, azaleas, and bells of Ireland. I'd debated throwing an anemone in there, but at the last second had decided that flower felt too dramatic.

No matter which flowers I'd left out, however, Kurama knew what these flowers meant.

The look on his face said everything in his heart, the way those flowers said everything in mine.

"Thank you for this," he said, slipping the paper bouquet into his jacket. His eyes, when they opened, had regained their crystalline fragility. "Thank you, Keiko."

I nodded, shoving my hands into my now-empty pocket. My index finger dug into my thumb's cuticle, picking and tearing and grinding the flesh there as anxiety took hold.

This was the last I'd see of him, for…I wasn't sure how long. Spirit World would take him into custody after the Mirror incident. He didn't know that, though. He thought this was our final goodbye. He planned to die in just two days. For our own reasons, we drank each other down, just staring in silence as darkness fell, privately bidding one another farewell, neither willing to speak the words aloud—Kurama unwilling to ask any more questions about the nature of his odd new friend.

It was too late for him to get answers from me. What good were those answers, anyway, if he intended to die so soon?

I think he'd realized the futility of his search, at last.

"You're welcome," I said, but only once I memorized the fall of his hair and the line of his jaw. I inclined my head, not bothering to smile. "I'll see you around, Minamino."

His reply—a tight smile, sadness hidden beneath polite façade—didn't confirm my statement. He had no intention of seeing me around.

"Take care, Yukimura," he said.

It hurt to look at him anymore, so I didn't. I spun on my heel and marched off down the sidewalk, keeping my eyes locked forward—only the last light of the setting sun glinted off something as I neared the corner of his house, drawing my attention like a lodestone draws metal.

I saw a window on the side of the house, and through it an IV stand. No IV bag adorned it, but I knew what the metal stand looked like. I'd seen Yusuke's, and Aunt Diana's, enough times to know. So was that Shiori's room, then?

No, Keiko. No use wondering. Keep walking. One foot in front of the other, just move, and—

My eyes drifted lower, beneath the window.

I stopped walking.

Slowly, I turned to face the house.

Like the sakura tree, forget-me-nots weren't supposed to bloom this time of year. Against all odds, and thicket of them edged the side of Kurama's home, filling the entire gap between Kurama's house and his neighbor's with pale blue blossoms.

Pale blue blossoms, and rich green leaves.

Rich green leaves the precise color of Kurama's eyes—mirroring his the way the flowers mirrored the eyes of the dead boy in the story he'd told me so many weeks before.

"Once upon a time," Kurama had said in the warm greenhouse, "a mother lost her child. The mother grieved for weeks, refusing food and water. Her child's spirit watched in anguish as his mother faded away. One night, when the mother's grieving reached its peak, the child shed tears for his mother. He wept at her side, begging her with words unheard to eat, drink, and set aside her heartache.

"The next morning, when the sun rose, the mother woke. All around her forget-me-nots had sprung…an unending field of blue, the color of her child's eyes."

"She carried the blossoms with her as she pieced her life together, in memory of her child. And she lived happily ever after."

I replayed his fairy tale in my head on repeat, watching the flowers swaying beneath his mother's window. I watched them, and I remembered Atsuko's serene smile as the forget-me-nots on her bed invaded her dreams, turning them sweet with the memory of her departed son.

Kurama, the fox, was prepping for his death—but not only for that. He was prepping for his mother's grief, as well. He'd planted his magical plants beneath her window to give her good dreams of her dead son, once he left her. Once he gave his life for her in his gigantic, proud gesture of martyred repayment.

All at once, my heart hung heavy in my chest, weighted down by sadness and anger and disbelief.

Had he learned nothing during his time as a human?

"What's wrong?"

He appeared at my side on feet as quiet as a true fox's. I didn't look at him, though. I took a deep breath, smelling sakura, evergreen, mint—and now, as the wind picked up, the sweet, sweet smell of forget-me-nots.

"You know what's wrong," I breathed.

He shifted on his feet, uncertain once more. "What are you—?"

This time, I looked at him. I looked at his beautiful green eyes, unable to hide the melancholy in my own.

For the first time, I didn't bother to hide behind innuendo or puns.

For the first time, I told him how I felt.

"Do you really think those flowers will heal her, when you're gone?" I asked. "Do you really think flowers are enough?"

Once again, Kurama didn't—or couldn't—answer. And in my heart, I could not help but pity him.

Did he really think so little of himself?

I knew he hated how he'd treated his mother, before he learned to love her. I knew he blamed himself for her broken spirit and her subsequent illness. I knew he carried the weight of her impending demise on his shoulders.

Even so…how could he possibly think mere flowers could make up for his absence in his mother's life—in anyone's life? Didn't he know he was worth so much more than that?

Did he truly despise himself that much?

"I'll see you around, Minamino." I heard the words as if at a great distance. "Enjoy your dinner."

He didn't stop me when I left. I looked back when I reached the end of the block. He stood stock still, staring at the forget-me-nots through eyes unseeing.

I left him there, in the fading twilight, hoping I had cooked his dinner properly, and that the flavors tasted of comfort.

So far as he knew, it was one of the last meals he'd ever eat.


I walked home in the dark, barely paying attention to other pedestrians as I tried very, very hard not to cry. Kurama's apparent self-loathing weighed heavy on my heart; I couldn't help the resulting sniffles. When I entered the alley behind my parents' restaurant, something finally caught my attention. I tensed at movement in the dark shadows behind the dumpster—but it was only Cleo, black-clad figure stepping gaunt into the dim light above the nearby back door. My finger relaxed on the trigger of my pepper spray. Had reached for it since I was so close to home, where my mother surely didn't want me using any aikido moves.

"Hello, Keiko," Cleo said. Her hands moved in her pockets, restless. "Nice night."

I didn't bother with a greeting. "What are you doing here?"

Even at night she wore her dark sunglasses, rendering her expression inscrutable. "I'm here to see you. On your terms."

The proclamation rendered me momentarily speechless. Her chin, tucked down near the collar of her leather jacket, jutted in an obstinate pout. Seemed she meant what she said, for once. Refreshing.

"OK," I said. "Let's take a walk."

"How 'bout a ride?" she countered.

Her motorcycle waited on the curb in front of the restaurant—how had I not seen it when I walked up? Or did Cleo summon it, somehow, the same way she seemed to appear with no warning? I wasn't sure, and she did not reveal her secrets when she handed me a spare helmet and told me to put it on. My heartrate kicked up when I straddled the bike at her behest. I'd shattered my elbow in my past life on a similar vehicle, after all. Some post-traumatic stressors defy even death. Luckily Keiko's nerves held firm despite the beating of my heart.

Her thin, reedy waist and knobbly spine stayed firm beneath my grip as she engaged the engine, disengaged the brake, and kicked the bike into gear. She piloted the heavy, growling bike with ease, apparently unperturbed by the wind, cold and biting at higher speeds. Neither of us spoke as she drove; she only chuckled once when she took a corner at an angle and my arms tensed around her middle. Keiko's nerves weren't infallible, after all.

Cleo took us out of the city and then above it, into the hills to the north of Sarayashiki—the same hills and roads, I suspected, Sensui's goons would travel when they eventually kidnapped Kuwabara. Continue up those hills and you'd find yourself in the mountains, on your way to Genkai's compound beyond the horizon. Cleo opened up the throttle when she hit these mostly deserted roads, flying down switchbacks and accelerating around corners (corners bordered by sheer drops over cliffs, guard rails as thin as candy floss) like a rally racer.

Eventually we came to a stop at the end of a switchback, a drop-off diving deep into the darkness below, area illuminated by a sputtering floodlight atop a pole. Cleo parked in a shallow median by the guard rail, bike mere feet away from plunging into the depthless shadows. For all the terror of that sheer drop, however, she'd chosen a beautiful spot. The city of Sarayashiki sprawled below, all lights and glitter and sleeping streets. Beyond that, on the horizon, lay the sprawl of Tokyo itself, horizon illuminated as though the city were the rising sun.

"I like it up here," Cleo said. "Bird's eye view of humanity."

I didn't say anything. She harrumphed, then waked to the guard rail and swung one long leg over it. Cleo settled atop the narrow metal strip, feet inches from the cliff, staring over the city like a watchful gargoyle on the edge of a cathedral battlement.

"All that potential," she murmured. "All those stories, being lived and experienced in a million different ways. So close you could touch it, but forever beyond your reach."

I got the sense she wasn't speaking for my benefit. Too bad I didn't have the patience to abide her rambling. Steeling myself for the truth, I asked, "Are you really one of the Fates?"

She didn't reply for a moment, or move. Then her hand tightened into a fist atop the rail at her side.

"Yes," she said.

A simple response, straightforward and clear. I appreciated that, even though it summoned more questions than it answered. I chewed on her reply for a moment before saying, "And is Hiruko really the god Ebisu from Japanese legend?"

"Yes," she repeated.

One more mystery solved. Which led me to the question, "Why did Hiruko bring me here?"

Cleo's shoulder-length hair tossed as a wind stripped by. She did not turn around or fix the errant strands, however. She merely said, "I'm not sure."

"Don't lie to me," I said, but there was no aggression in my words. I kept my tone as simple as her own, movements purposefully languid as I joined her on the guard rail (although I kept my feet firmly on the least dangerous side of it, thank you, yawning darkness a gaping maw at my back that set my spine to tingling).

"I'm not lying." Cleo's silvery eyes met mine over the top of her sunglasses. "I'm not actually sure why he brought you here."

Although I detected no deception in her words, I couldn't give up that easily. I said, "Then what are your theories? You can at least tell me those, right?"

Cleo shut her eyes, grimacing. Her voice sounded like a surgeon's instrument, sharp but delicate. "There are things I can't tell you, Keiko."

"Can't, or won't?" I pressed.

"Can't."

"You liar!" Her eyes popped wide, surprised at my spitting words. My earlier placidity had vanished, all my Kurama-induced frustration boiling to the surface at once. "You said this meeting was on my terms. Mine. Not yours!"

Cleo heaved a sigh. "It is on your terms—"

"No," I snapped. "If you won't answer my questions, then this is not on my terms. I want to know what's happening, what Hiruko wants, what his goal is, how he did all of this, how—"

"Keiko!" It was Cleo's turn to snap. She shifted to face me, teeth visibly clenched in her narrow jaw. "I am trying. I am! But—Hiruko, he's a lost soul. He's looking for his place. But the specifics, I just don't know." She shook her head, voice lowering when I didn't fight her. "Hiruko came to us. We tried to help him. But he couldn't be…satisfied." Cleo took a deep breath, something catching in her throat. "We…couldn't do what he asked. So, he took—he took—"

Cleo opened her mouth, presumably to keep speaking—but no words came out. Her speech had become more and more labored as she'd gone on, ever word more gravelly than the last until she couldn't talk at all. Now she stared, trying to speak, face growing pale as she lifted a hand and cupped the column of her white throat.

"He—took—" she said.

And then she was on her feet, leaping over the guard rail onto solid ground, where she collapsed to her knees. Her back heaved and arched as she wretched onto the asphalt, and despite my distaste for Cleo, I found myself at her side, hand on her heaving back as she tried to vomit. Nothing like seeing someone vomit to get you to care about them.

Only, when she finally managed to throw up, what came up wasn't the remnant of some half-digested meal.

Cleo vomited up a fountain of bright blood. It caught the ends of her hair, staining them and the skin around her mouth deep red.

"Oh my god," I said, lurching away from her. "Oh my god, Cleo!"

She lifted a hand and waved at me, blood running down her chin like she'd been eating juicy watermelon, eyes telling me to stay back—and then she had to wretch again. Another font of blood poured from her open mouth.

Something solid fell to the pavement with a clatter.

That thing appeared to be the culprit of this…attack, of Cleo's. She stopped heaving as soon as it came up. Fingers as delicate as a doctor's forceps, Cleo reached into the puddle of blood and plucked the object up. She cleaned it with a handkerchief she pulled from her pocket, frowning irritably at the thing as if it had personally insulted her.

It was a stone, I realized. A smooth, black stone, oval, the size of a child's fist.

"I'm sorry, Keiko." Cleo's voice rasped, thick with blood and mucus. "I'm sorry, but I tried." Silver eyes slid my way, pleading. "You understand that, don't you?"

It didn't take me long to work out what she was implying. After all, it was pretty obvious.

"You…you literally can't talk about it," I said. "I mean, you literally can't. Can you?" I swallowed down my rising nausea as wind blew the scent of blood my way. "Maybe it's magic. I don't know. But whatever it is, you're barred, or cursed, or somehow prevented from telling me everything, aren't you? And if you try, you throw up blood and stones."

Cleo chuckled. "Perceptive."

"There was a podcast I used to listen to, where secrets sounded like static in the ears of those not meant to hear them." My wry smile probably didn't reach my eyes. "I'm less perceptive than I am I'm genre-savvy."

That drew forth another of Cleo's dead-leaf laughs. "And here I thought you didn't believe you were in a story."

"I didn't believe I'm in a fanfiction," I corrected. "A story, maybe. This is certainly feeling more like a story every day." I gestured at the blood but tried very hard not to look at it. "Demigods, fates, and magical anti-truth curses and whatnot…"

Cleo (who had been wiping blood from her mouth) grimaced. "It's less a curse than it is…" She searched for words, finding them only once the blood had been blotted away. "Let's just say there are some secrets mortal flesh cannot entertain. Some things are just too big."

Another veiled implication, but one I made short work of. I asked, "Borrowing a body, are we?"

"Something like that." She looked over the cliff at the city again. Once more, her words did not sound meant for me, though this time they were not guarded by blood and pebbles. "Moral flesh has its limitations. And its joys."

Lights from the city reflected in her sunglasses, stars on a dark sky. Oddly, I read longing in her expression—longing and pride, neither of which made sense to me. I joined her at the railing to share in her lofty view.

"Thank you for trying to talk to me," I said.

She shook her head, chuffing. "Don't thank me. I didn't tell you enough. Not nearly enough to warrant thanks."

"Still," I insisted. "You tried. I've tried to tell a lot of stories and failed. There's no shame in that."

My thoughts drifted to the mountain of unfinished stories I'd written, and left behind, in my old life—not to mention the efforts I'd made in this life to complete them. These stories I kept under my mattress in bound journals, alongside the journals where I'd penned my remembered details of Yu Yu Hakusho. I'd never gotten far into those works-in-progress. Like Cleo had said: I was living in a story, or a story-like world. My former imagined worlds didn't seem so urgent, now that I lived in a fictional universe of my very own.

"My child…you were not meant to be here."

Cleo stared in my direction, eyes obscured by her dark glasses. I frowned. I didn't like how I couldn't read her, couldn't see what she was thinking in the lines of her face or the gleam of her eye.

"What do you mean?" I said.

"This world. This place." She gestured at the city, with its myriad people and stories and plots, independent of mine yet still important. "It was not meant…it was not meant to be. And it is flawed because of this."

Sensing a theme, I asked, "Does this have anything to do with the missing stories?"

She seemed pleased, if the curl of her lip meant anything. "So you've seen it. You've seen this incomplete facsimile of a universe." Cleo ran her age-spotted hands through her bloody hair and laughed. "Hiruko was a lousy student."

Maybe because she spoke offhand, her words were allowed to enter the world. Or maybe that just wasn't a secret too large for her skin. Intrigued, sensing answers, I said, "He was your student?"

"Yes." Her feet moved, carrying her close to me. "He was so lost, Keiko. We pitied him. We tried—" Cleo swallowed, throat catching again. It sounded like hiccups, when she strayed too close to the truth. "We tried to give him a place—to teach him, and to help him, and—"

One more, her words tangled in her throat. This time I didn't run when she fell to her knees and coughed blood onto the pavement. I held back her hair, instead, murmuring comforts until the stone forced its way up her throat and fell to the ground. This truth, too, she cleaned and stowed in her jacket pocket, tucking it from sight like a magpie hoarding treasure.

"Thank you," she ground out once she recovered enough to speak. "Keiko—"

"Don't," I said. The word surprised even me, but Cleo was trying, even if I didn't have all the answers yet. "You've done enough."

"I'm sorry." She looked like she meant it, with eyes downcast and shoulders slumped. Her hand trembled when she passed it through her pink-tipped hair. "I'll…I'll ty again. Another time."

"OK. Sure." My smiled looked as brittle as Cleo's eyes, I was certain. "I'll chew on this a while, see if I can piece things together. Take some of the work out for you."

"Thanks. Appreciate it." She grimaced, then, face contorting with pain and reluctance. Her shoulders slumped further, shrinking inside the shell of her leather jacket. "Sorry, Keiko. But I have to go."

"Wait until I'm not watching." When she frowned at my request, I said, "Your whole Harry Potter Apparating act gives me the wiggins."

"But—" She gestured at her motorbike. "I can—"

"It's OK. You're in no shape to drive." It was a long walk back, but the cold nearly-spring air would do wonders to clear my head. I certainly had a lot to think about. I did my best thinking alone. "I'll find my own way home."

Cleo nodded. Her glasses glinted in the light of the lamp, pools of cosmic dark that saw more than I could fathom.

"I've left a shortcut for you," she said. She lifted a finger like a flag on a fraying wire. "Walk down the hill a ways. You'll see it."

Strength failing, she sat heavily on the guard rail, but she did not vanish into the ether. Respecting my wishes to not see her pull her little disappearing act, probably. Badass that she was still standing despite the amount of blood she'd barfed, also probably. Cleo was made of stern stuff. Bidding her a muttered goodbye, I turned and walked down the sloping road, intending to disappear behind the bend in the switchback much the same way she might disappear into thin air.

"Keiko—a warning."

The lights from the city lit her from behind, casting her cobweb hair into a silver halo and her dark jacket into an oil slick silhouette. Fatigue limned her like a shroud. I did not know what it took for her to be here, talking to me, but I suspected every moment had its cost.

"You matter," she said, "but less than you think. The friends you make here—the characters you regard as canon—they are the ones you need to protect. Not yourself."

She was preaching to the choir, little did she know. I nodded. "OK."

"Not that I had to tell you that." Her teeth glimmered like bullets beneath the cold street lamp. "You'd protect them all on your own, wouldn't you?"

"I love them." The words were as simple as they were true. "I love all of them. Even the ones I haven't met yet."

"I can tell. Your love of stories shows. And that love is written on your bones in ways you can't even imagine." Her head lolled, elbows resting sharply on her knees. Cleo's voice carried on the wind, audible, but only barely. "Take care, Keiko. I'll see you soon."

Taking her at her word, I left her where she sat. I did not ask Cleo anything else that night.

Halfway down the path toward the next switchback, I found a bicycle leaning sedate against the guard rail. Cleo's shortcut, it seemed, summoned for me by methods unknowable. I rode it home in the dark, the bloated moon my guide down the winding mountain road.

I fell into bed, and into a dreamless sleep, with more questions than I had answers—but the feeling I had finally found the path toward the certainty, even if it was paved with the spit up stones of Cleo's unspoken truths.


A tuft of errant hair jutted off the back of Yusuke's head. He spoke through a hearty yawn as I trotted out the back door of my parents' restaurant.

"Morning," he said. "Remind me again why school starts so goddamn early?"

"To torture us." We fell into step, side by side on the way to Yusuke's first day back. "And to prepare us for life as productive, sleep-deprived adults—AKA, compliant cogs in the machine of society."

"Wow, Keiko. You got a bit anarchist while I was gone." He sounded almost impressed; I just laughed.

"Maybe." I eyed him askance as we walked out of the alley and onto the sidewalk proper. "You feeling OK about going back?"

Yusuke's glower could melt bricks. "Since when have I ever felt OK about school?"

"True." My lips curled, mischievous. "At least you don't have to wear bright pink."

"Uh. Pink?" When my smile grew, maniacal and mysterious, he put a bit of creeped-out distance between us. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Wait and see."

Yusuke had called late the night before, shortly after I made it home from my rendezvous with Cleo, and had asked to walk to school together the next morning…sort of. He wanted to walk me to school. I almost called him a gentleman before realizing he had to have some ulterior motive or another—most likely he didn't want me walking him to school so he could play hooky, make his escape without me dragging him bodily to class. Whatever. Frankly, I was willing to tolerate his chicanery no matter his motives so long as it meant getting to see a friendly face.

The events of the night before had me rattled, I confess. Kurama and Cleo, and the drama associated with each, left me feeling numb. One final walk to school with Yusuke (ironic considering it was also the first walk to school with Yusuke in quite some time) wouldn't go amiss.

Something told me I should savor this walk. Who knew when we'd get a chance at another, once the shit hit the fan?

As we navigated the early commuter crowds and made our final approach to Meiou, Yusuke stopped dead in his tracks. The school gate loomed before us. Surely in his eyes it looked like the gate of a prison, even if he didn't go to the same school as me anymore, and this particular prison was not his own.

"Oh my fucking god," Yusuke said, bulging eyes fixed on the students as they filed in the gates. "Oh—oh my god."

I nodded, hands flapping. "Oh my god, right?!"

"It's…it's magenta." He tracked the boys as they walked past, aghast, appalled, astounded at the horrible color they all wore. "Who the hell thought magenta was a good idea?"

"Nice use of color language," I observed. With a prim smile I smoothed the front of my crimson skirt. "I lucked out. Red's my color."

But Yusuke was too transfixed at the horror before him to pay attention. "So bright," he said. "So girly." He pulled an impressive stink-face. "So…gross!"

"Yeah. I much prefer the girls' uniform."

"Heck, I'd prefer wearing the girls' uniform over that garbage."

"Makes you grateful for Sarayashiki's uniforms, doesn't it?" I nudged him slyly in the ribs. "One might think it could almost inspire you to wear the right color uniform, for once."

He shrugged, shoulders of his green summer uniform wrinkling. "Ha. Over my dead body."

I stared at him. Took a minute, but soon Yusuke realized what he'd done. He smacked his cheek with an exaggerated groan.

"Oh damn," he said. "Even I'm making puns now."

I gave his head a sympathetic pat. "The jokes write themselves."

Yusuke's eyes flashed; he started to say something, waving away my hand like a dog rejecting an unwanted ear-scratching, but then he fell silent. His eyes trained over my shoulder like a sniper's scope.

"Can you believe this?" he muttered, too low for anyone else to hear. "Not even at my school and they're already staring!"

I snuck a glance over my shoulder. Two boys and a girl, all wearing garish Meiou fashion, openly stared in Yusuke's direction. I paid them no mind and stuck my nose high in the air.

"Well, of course they are," I said, tone comically lofty. "Word travels fast when there's a zombie invasion afoot."

Yusuke cracked a wicked smile before slouching, hooking his hands into claws, and shuffling past me at the staring students. One foot dragged behind him in an exaggerated limp.

"Brains!" he groaned at my classmates. "Braaaains!" He couldn't keep the aggressive smile off his face. "Don't make me bite you. You'll get infected!"

As one, my classmates eeped, faces paling as they stepped away from Yusuke's zombie impression. I stepped between them and Yusuke, hand coming up to ward my friend off.

"Play nice," I said to him. Turning to my classmates, I pasted on a chipper smile and cheerily intoned, "Sorry about him. He's adjusting to being human. You know. Since he was dead recently."

Watching my classmates shriek and run off was intensely satisfying, I've gotta say. Yusuke hooked an arm around my neck with a crow of devious delight.

"You're evil!" he said.

"Learned from the best." I grabbed his wrist, keeping his arm around me so he couldn't get away. I pinned him with a stare as I asked, "You sure you don't want me to walk you to school?"

"Nah." He twisted, unlooping his arm and stepping out of range. "Gotta face the music like a man."

"Or just ditch me so you can play hooky."

Immediately his expression became casual. Too casual. Looking hurt, he said, "It's almost like you think I'm some sort of delinquent, Keiko."

"Almost," I said, agreeably. My tone skewed stern. "Go to school, Yusuke, you hear me?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Putting his back to me, he walked away. His hand rose over his head in farewell. "Karaoke later?"

"Sure. Meet you at my parents' after class!"

"Right. See ya!"

I watched him go knowing it was unlikely we'd get to hit up karaoke later. There was no telling if he'd actually go to school or not, of course, though I hoped he'd at least give his first day back a proper shot...but why was I even worried? If all things went as planned, he'd end up skipping school today to track down Gouki. Skipping school was an inevitability. But if he could at least make it to class on time, maybe the hooky would be excused…

He wasn't the only one playing hooky, I soon learned, or the only canon character with mysterious whereabouts.

Kurama wasn't in school, either. My stomach dropped into my heels when I saw his empty desk.

"So I was right," I said, words slipping free of their own volition.

"Hmm?" Junko said at my side.

"Oh, um. Nothing," I said. I hooked an arm through hers and pulled her past the empty seat. "Nothing at all."

I spent class staring at Kurama's desk and gnawing absently on the end of a pen. No doubt Kurama was in Spirit World, robbing it blind of its hidden treasures with the help of Hiei and Gouki. And no doubt soon Koenma would summon Yusuke from school to begin his first mission as the Spirit Detective.

The stars—or the full moon, rather—had at last aligned.

The Artifacts of Darkness Arc had begun.


NOTES:

We're here.

Very excited for the next few chapters. The events within have been clear in my head since the beginning. So glad we've come this far. Next week gets exciting!

Keiko's paper bouquet made me laugh. She can't grow exotic flowers in winter, so paper versions would have to do. Also, translation: The azaleas meant "take care of yourself for me." The chrysanthemums meant "you are a wonderful friend." The bells of Ireland meant "good luck." The unused anemones meant "betrayal."

You are all beyond wonderful and kind, and I'm so grateful for the support you left this week. MAJOR SUPER AWESOME THANKS TO Counting Sinful Stars, Orihime-san, Yakiitori, wennifer-lynn, EmmieSauce, tatewaki2000, kittenfood, Ne Quittez Pas, compass96, general zargon, FireDancerNix, essex2, Kaiya Azure, xenocanaan, chinchilla donut, Saria19, FallenSlayer17, Sesshomarus'Luvr, rya-fire1, Corralinne, Marian, DiCuoreAllison, CrystalVixen93, Waltzing Shadow, Bergholt Stuttley Johnson, ahyeon,, o-dragon, dontblink, Tsuki-Lolita, MyHeartBeating-MWMI, AkaMizu-chan, rikku92, Vyxen Hexgrim, Guest, Just 2 Dream of You, Lady Rini, Antionette Peter, cocobyrd87, and Chi-chan!