Warnings: None
Note: While I think it's rather self-explanatory after a few paragraphs, the first chunk of this chapter is a flashback to when Kagome and Keiko came home after their visit to the past. There are some hints/foreshadowings (er, past-shadowings? Is it possible to foreshadow something that happened in the past?) about Daughters of Destiny, but no spoilers aside from how they both made it back safely (though I don't think that will come as a shock to anyone). Thanks!
Lucky Child
Chapter 57:
"Sleeping Dogs Lie"
Eyes swollen, cheeks wet with tears, Kagome sat up and pushed away from me, away from the arm I'd wound around her shoulders. She scrubbed her sleeve across her face and said, "So what's the plan for the worst case scenario, huh?"
I frowned, because the question—spoken in a voice gummy from crying—had come apropos of absolutely nothing. In fact, it had nothing to do what she'd been crying over in the first place.
"Y'know." She snuffled, trying to dry her running nose. "If I run into the two of you and he recognizes me?"
It clicked.
"He" could only mean Kurama.
I didn't say anything for a minute, leaning back against the headboard of Kagome's twin bed. She sat with her mouth pressed to her knees at my side, eyes distant and unfocused. She wore pajamas too big for her tiny frame, long black hair hanging in clumping mats around her heart-shaped face, arms clutching her legs to her chest. Hair combed straight back over my head, still feeling damp from the bath we'd taken to scrub of the dust of a previous century, there hadn't been time to reflect on our trip to the Feudal Era—not beyond the horrible truth Kagome had learned, anyway. Not beyond that horrible revelation that had caused her to cry in the first place.
Honestly? It made sense she'd want to change the subject. I didn't envy her one bit, even if she'd finally found some of the answers she'd been searching for since Hiruko put her in the body of an anime character.
Sometimes, ignorance really was bliss.
"Good question," I said. "Here's another: What are the odds he'll recognize you, do you think?"
She stirred, eyes focusing again. "I mean. High, right? He's Kurama." She put a knuckle to her temple and turned her hand like she twisted the shaft of a key. "Mind like a steel trap."
"That's true. But would even he remember you after 500 years? That's a long time to remember a face you only saw once, and only for half an hour."
Her head lifted off her knees, rising higher with confidence. "Good point," Kagome said. "And he didn't seem to remember you when you met in this era, right?"
"Right. But I was a lot less interesting than you were during the incident in the past. You were the one who interacted with him most." But that wouldn't comfort Kagome, who clearly needed comfort more than hard truth (she'd already faced too much of that for one day). I dropped the subject in favor of saying: "Even so. It was just for an hour, and 500 years ago. I really doubt his memory of you is razor sharp."
She nodded—and then she managed to smile, even if the expression trembled at the corners. "And you know what? Youko Kurama didn't give much of a crap about humans, back in the day. Why would he commit a little human girl to memory when he only met her once?"
Once—that we know of, I wanted to say, but I didn't.
Comfort, even at the expense of truth.
We'd have to let this sleeping dog lie until she was ready to wake it from its slumber.
"Whatever the case," I said, "here's hoping we weren't impressive or memorable enough for Kurama to recall after 500 years."
She listed to one side, head pillowing on my shoulder. "Say it again."
I grinned. "500 years."
Kagome hummed, appreciative. "Once more time."
"500 years."
"Ooh, nice. Very comforting." She affected a delighted shiver, a la the hyenas from Lion King, although the moment of levity wasn't meant to last. Head on my shoulder again, Kagome murmured, "But if I do ever run into him, we'll use the codename again."
"Different from the one we used in the past, though," I said. "Throw him off the scent even more. How about, um…Mitsuki or something?"
I half expected Kagome to argue, tell me to pick a prettier name, or another flower-name to go with her previous floral alias. I expected her to bring up the names of other anime characters and make a joke about impersonating one, one anime character inhabiting the name of another like a Russian nesting doll of meta anime references.
She did not do any of that, however.
Kagome only nodded and murmured the word, "Sure."
I changed the subject, because that's what Kagome needed.
Kuwabara broke the silence first. He had no reason to be afraid, or perplexed, or stunned into silence—the emotions plastered across the faces of Kagome, Kurama, and myself respectively. He looked between Kagome and I with a confused scowl, though, for reasons I couldn't quite put my finger on.
"Wait," he said. "Eeyore?" At that he gasped and bolted to his feet, knock-kneed and gangly in his alarm. "Are you tellin' me that even this kid has a nickname for you, Keiko?!"
Had my pulse not started throbbing in my broken leg, it would've been hilarious how far over Kuwabara's head this situation flew. Kurama's eyes flickered to Kuwabara, the lightest trace of annoyance crossing his features at the outburst, but he said nothing and retuned his gaze to Kagome. He didn't look outright angry, which I counted as quite the blessing. He just stared at Kagome with the lightest of frowns—and although I couldn't read his face beyond the smallest edge of confusion, I took comfort in the fact Kuwabara was there.
Kurama, private person as he was, likely wouldn't make a scene over this with Kuwabara present. He had both his secrets, not to mention mine, to keep hidden.
As I struggled to find my tongue and answer Kuwabara's question, Kagome's stare travelled from Kuwabara to Kurama and then back to me again, a round of wide-eyed horror and confusion that she played off within a second or two (thank my lucky fucking stars). She bustled over to the table in the corner and dumped her bundle of sunflowers in the ice bucket, putting her back to us as she fussed with the flowers—because not all of them fit in the bucket. She paused, then grabbed a glass of water and stuck a flower in there, too, one by one arranging the blossoms in every last drinking vessel she could reach, flowers scattered over that side-table with no discernable pattern whatsoever.
Buying for time, by the looks of it.
Time for me to step in.
"Um—this is my friend Mitsuki," I said, gesturing at Kagome. She looked over her shoulder at me, face schooled into a polite (if not slightly manic in its intensity) smile. "Say hi, Mitsuki."
"Hi Mitsuki," said Kagome. She winced, curling her hair behind her ears and hopping from foot to foot. "I mean, hi, I'm Mitsuki." Her smiled went even more manic, twitching at one corner. "Are, um. Are these your friends, Eeyore?"
"Yes. This is Minamino Shuichi and Kuwabara Kazuma." The aforementioned bowed a little (although Kurama's unreadable green eyes never wavered). To the boys I said, "I met Mitsuki at the library. We're good buds."
Kuwabara broke out in a wide grin. "Oh, well, any friend of Keiko's is a friend of mine." He extended his hand toward Kagome, and thanks to their height difference he loomed over her like a skyscraper over a shack. "Great t' meetcha!"
Her hand all but disappeared in his enormous grip. "Great to meet you too," she said—but her eyes strayed to Kurama, who still stared at her with expression utterly inscrutable, and her face paled. She pulled her hand from Kuwabara's and smiled at the fox demon, the twitch at the corner of her mouth growing all the more pronounced.
"And, um." She did not approach for a handshake. "It was nice to meet you as well."
Kurama inclined his head. As if he'd thrown something at her, she dipped into a low, dramatic bow, bent at a clean 90 degrees at the waist. Kuwabara blinked down at her with a low, "Huh?"
"Anyway—gee, look at the time!" She popped up from the bow and made a show of looking at her watch, followed by an exaggerated wave. "I gotta get going! Sure was good to see you, Eeyore—I mean, Keiko." The look she shot me was as loaded as a machine gun, eyes nearly bugging from her skull. "Hopefully we'll do it again soon, yeah?"
"Yeah, but—wait!"
Alas, there would be no waiting, because no sooner had the word 'yeah' left my lips than Kagome darted for the door. Kurama watched with eyebrow raised; Kuwabara watched with jaw hanging open. As for me, I just buried my head in my hands and sighed.
That…could have gone better.
Not suspicious at all, Kagome, nooo…
When I let my hands fall, I found Kurama staring at me sidelong, eyes cool and assessing, wheels behind them turning as calculations fell into place. Inscrutable, though. Forever and always as difficult to read as the future in a cup of tea leaves.
"Uh, no offense or nothin'," Kuwabara said with a point at the door. "But your friend's a little, um…what's the word?" He winced. "Oh yeah. Weird?"
"She's shy around strangers," I said out loud—but inside I cursed the bad luck of Kagome's poor timing (or rather, the poor timing of the boys' visit, because Kagome was the only one who'd bothered to call ahead and schedule a meeting). I didn't blame Kagome for her awkward behavior, though, because obviously facing down Kurama was intimidating as all hell. I would've reacted the same way, had I been in Kagome's shoes after our adventure over summer break.
Green eyes stayed trained on me, trying their damndest to make me squirm. I refused, however, and looked Kurama dead in the eye to ask (in the most casual, concerned voice I could muster): "You OK, Kurama?"
He did not immediately react. When he spoke it was with deliberate leisureliness, Kurama in no hurry at all—which was honestly sort of terrifying in its own right. "That girl. She seemed…" A frown creased the skin between his eyes. "Has she visited you at school before?"
"Um." I put a finger to my lips, feigning thought. "Nope?"
"What's a matter, Kurama?" Kuwabara said. He sat heavily on my bed, mattress dipping under his weight, sliding me an inch toward him with a creek of sling. "You think you've seen her before or something?"
A bland smile. "No. She merely looks familiar. I'm sure it's just my imagination." But he followed that with a pointed stare straight at me, smile showing just the barest hint of teeth. "And if it's not, I'm sure the answer will come to me in time."
We stared at each other, while Kuwabara looked on in mystified silence. Kurama blinked first, seemingly in no rush for answers—and oh my god what was he planning, and how much did he suspect, really?
"Now," he said, all pleasant smiles and easygoing calm, "where were we before your friend…?"
I jumped on the subject change like a flea onto a dog, because this dog I felt more than content to let lie sleeping very still and undisturbed. "I was just about to tell you about my wild night," I said, and before anyone could delay, I launched right into the tale of outfitting the school, Amagi's arrival, and hiding in the PE shed when the teacher when full nutbar.
"So we hid there for a while," I said, "and you won't even believe this—but I heard a scream and ran to the window, and there she was: Botan! Just running across the lawn with a baseball bat, yelling my name, trying to find me. Isn't that wild?"
Kurama and Kuwabara exchanged a Look, which was weird, and what was up with the two of them all of a sudden? For a minute I wondered if they knew something I didn't about the Botan situation, which would be even wilder than her showing up out of the blue like she had—but then Kuwabara said: "Botan. I think I know that name—oh, right!" He snapped his fingers, eyes bright. "She's a friend of Yusuke's, isn't she?"
I snorted. "Of course she is."
"I remember," Kurama said. "She was the one who was cut by the Shadow Sword, was she not?"
"Of course she was," I said, impatient. "Do you guys really not remember—oh."
But before I could get going, the words died on my tongue. Pieces had clicked into place like the gears of a finely tuned watch.
Oh. Oh shit.
Kuwabara had never actually met Botan, had he?
Kuwabara was supposed to know Botan from her presence at Genkai's Tournament. Thanks to her little eye problem, she hadn't attended that tournament, and that meant…well, shit. Kuwabara had probably only heard of Botan in passing. And now that I thought about it, in the anime Kurama didn't formally meet Botan until the Dark Tournament, and in this world he'd only ever seen her unconscious right after she got cut with the Sword. So of course he hadn't much reacted to the idea of her showing up unannounced. He had no idea who Botan was or why her presence could cause alarm. Why be concerned by the presence of a stranger?
It came as no surprise, therefore, that Kuwabara and Kurama listened to my tale of Botan's plight with only the mildest of concern—or disgust, in Kuwabara's case, and fascination in Kurama's. Kuwabara turned nearly green when I told them of the eye ("She had a third what-now?!") caused by Hiei's cut with the Shadow Sword, but Kurama leaned forward in his seat with fingers steepled over his lap. The calculating glimmer in his eyes didn't fade when I finished my story. Neither did Kuwabara's look of revulsion, even after I said that Botan had disappeared when my back was turned, taking her gross new eye with her. I had no idea where she was now, I told them, and was worried for her safety—especially since she'd fled Spirit World's custody specifically to save me from the infected humans.
Even though Ayame hadn't meant to guilt-trip me, I felt guilty all the same. I swallowed a throat full of nerves and took a deep breath before continuing.
"To make matters even more complicated," I said, "I had a little visit from Ayame last night, on behalf of Spirit World."
Kurama scowled. "What did they want?"
"This time? Just to know where Botan is." I hesitated to tell them the hard truth, but now was not the time to hold back details (aside from my deliberate omission of Sailor V, naturally). "Ayame told me Botan's third eye manifested when she came to Human World, not before."
Kurama got it at once, eyes widening just the barest fraction. It took Kuwabara a bit longer, but he soon shoved his fist over his mouth with a gasp.
"Are you saying Botan got worse when she came to save you?" he said, eyes wide and apprehensive.
I nodded, grim. Kuwabara shot to his feet with a wave of his enormous hands. "Hey, it's not your fault she came here to help!" he said, because empathetic Kuwabara knew exactly where my overthinking brain was headed and had no intention of letting it get there on his watch. "You can't blame yourself, Keiko; you really can't! Botan sounds like a nice lady, especially since she can put up with Yusuke. You can't blame yourself for her being nice to you, even if it did give her a third eye or whatever."
"Agreed," Kurama murmured. He, too, knew exactly where my overthinking head and heart wanted to go. "You are not responsible for the actions of others, much though you wish to take that responsibility onto yourself."
I ran my hand through my bangs, fluffing up the strands from the roots. "Yeah, I know," I grumbled. "I'm just worried about her. They kept Botan in isolation before she had the third eye. What do you think they'll do to her now that she's gotten even worse?"
Kuwabara's horrified expression matched how I felt inside. Kurama, geared more for subtlety, stated with mild calm, "It's certainly a valid concern."
"You don't think they'd, like, lock her up in a jail, do you?" Kuwabara fretted.
"I hope not," I said, but my fingers clenched in my hair, pulling at the strands until it hurt. Kurama noticed (curse those eagle eyes) and gave me a Pointed Look of Extreme Disapproval until I stopped.
"Unfortunately, Spirit World operates under ancient laws that are rarely bent, even for the benefit of one of their own," he said when I ceased tearing at my hair. "But even those laws likely do not account for what happened to Botan." A shadow gathered behind his verdant eyes. "Truth be told, I had no idea the Shadow Sword could affect a Spirit in such a way."
"I had no idea there were anything such things as Spirits until just now, so you're ahead of me," Kuwabara grumbled. "But this Botan lady—she's Yusuke's friend, right?"
"Yeah." I swallowed the lump in my throat, hands clenching the sheets instead of my hair this time. "And she's mine, too."
That was all Kuwabara needed to hear, because of course it was, because he was the best. He gave me a resolute nod and held up a fist. "Sounds like we gotta help her, then. We have to find her, figure out how to get rid of that eye, and make it all better." His scowl (aimed toward my room's tiny window) could've melted solid rock. "Though Hiei's the one who oughta go looking for her since he caused all this trouble in the first place! Little shrimp, swinging his sword around like a jerk. This Botan person sounds like a nice lady even if she's goes a little nuts sometimes, so she sure as hell didn't deserve all this crap."
"Perhaps Hiei could be persuaded to aid in the search," Kurama said, neatly glossing over Kuwabara's continued mutterings about Hiei's terrible attitude.
"Maybe so," I said. "I'll pitch it to him, but somehow I don't think he'll much care."
"You might be surprised, Kei. Hiei has quite the honor code these days." The smallest of smiles, secret and just for me (because Kuwabara had only rolled his eyes at the mention of Hiei and honor in the same sentence; it looked like Hiei and Kuwabara had gotten off to the same rocky start they'd shared in the anime). "Or rather, should I say he found the honor code he abandoned during his time with the Shadow Sword?"
"Hell if I know. I'm just glad he's not going around cutting people up anymore."
Kurama chuckled, although Kuwabara rolled his eyes again and increased the ferocity of his dark mutterings. The Mysterious Origin of Hiei's Inexplicable Honor Code still vexed me, but he'd made it through Maze Castle without betraying everyone, so I must not have screwed canon up too much.
"Anyway," I said. "Maybe once Yusuke wakes up, we can see what he thinks and then we can plan what to do with Botan. He's closest with her, and would be the most likely to know what she'd want us to do."
Kurama and Kuwabara both nodded at that—but while my suggestion to wait was based mostly in logic, I admit I had an ulterior motive. If Hiei tried to find Botan while she was with Sailor V…well. I wasn't sure the world was ready for that collision of fandoms. Not just yet, anyway. Delaying looking for her bought me time to find V, and cut this whole mess off at the pass.
"So, uh. Keiko?"
I started, pulled from my reverie by Kuwabara's hesitant voice. He sat up straight, pulling a small spiral-bound notebook from his back pocket, clearing his throat like a lecturer about to deliver a long and formal homily.
"Keiko, I've been thinking," he said, all ramrod posture and faux-official language, nose thrust high into the air. I half imagined a pair of spectacles appearing on his nose when he intoned, "I've been workshopping some nicknames and I was hoping I could get your input on the matter."
I blinked at him. "Nicknames?"
"Yeah! Y'know? Hiei calls you 'Meigo' and Kurama calls you 'Kei' and Yusuke calls you 'Grandma', or 'Mom' sometimes when you're not around, but I don't have one for you and I want that to change."
"Uh. OK?" I waved for him to continue, reclining back against my mountain of pillows. "Have at it, then."
He couldn't maintain his fake-professor vibe for long—not when he started smiling like Christmas had come early. "Great!" he said. He coughed primly into his fist before throwing up a finger and dramatically declaring, "How about…Kei-chan?"
My brow quirked. "That's Kurama's nickname with an honorific, isn't it?"
Kuwabara's face fell. "Oh." He flipped to another page in his notebook, scanned it, and offered a hopeful, "Kei-kun?"
"I'm afraid that's more of the same," Kurama observed.
Kuwabara's eyes bugged. "Argh, you're right! Well, um…" More frantic flipping through his notebook. "What about Ko-ko?"
"I mean, I'm not a gorilla."
"Huh?"
"Ko-Ko is the name of a famous gorilla and—oh, never mind."
He wasn't expecting it, so despite his faster reflexes I managed to lean forward and pluck the notebook from his hands. Kuwabara protested, trying to grab it back from me, but I held it as far away from his as possible and warded him off with my other hand.
"Look, Kuwabara, the best nicknames come up organically!" I said as he tried to wrestle back the notebook, his barrel chest nearly squashing me flat as he leaned over my torso. I said into his sternum, "Like, you find a nickname as a result of the experiences you share with a person, ya big palooka! You don't need to brainstorm stuff—you just gotta play it by ear!"
He latched onto my wrist, dragging the notebook back to him with a whine. "Yeah, but—"
"But what?"
Kuwabara didn't reply for a minute. Too busy taking the notebook, sitting next to me on the hospital bed, staring down into my face with lower lip caught between his teeth—hand still wrapped around my wrist. He shot Kurama a sidelong look, and his voice dropped so low I barely heard him speak.
"I—I don't wanna get left behind, or whatever, OK?" he said.
"Get left…" I repeated—and then I snatched the notebook back again and used it to (gently and playfully) swat the top of his fluffy orange hair. Kuwabara yelped, shielding himself with his hands. "Get left behind?!" I said, swatting at him. "Do you seriously think I'd stop being your friend over a nickname?"
He turned the color of an autumn apple, color standing in brilliant contrast to his carroty hair. "Well—well no, but—"
"Then but nothing, ya dingus!" I dropped the notebook and latched onto his shirtfront, dragging him down to my level to impress upon him just how serious I felt about this particular subject. The blush deepened further when I informed him, "I've told you a hundred times you're my best friend, and there's no way in hell you're getting left behind, got it?"
"Yeah, yeah, I got it, I got it." He pried my hands off his shirt, looking away with a scowl, but soon he broke out in a pleased grin. "I'll find something to call you eventually, for sure. If Hiei did it, then so can I!"
"Exactly." I crossed my arms over my chest like a haughty warlord. "Now stop fussing over nicknames and tell me about what you two went through. This I gotta hear from the horse's mouth." I frowned. "Mouths?"
Kuwabara chortled. Kurama smiled, too, saying, "Should you start neighing, Kuwabara? Or shall I?"
"You should since you fought first, I think."
"Logical. Very well." Kurama folded his hands, gathering himself before he began. "We entered Maze Castle through the front gate—"
Turns out Kurama was a pretty good storyteller in his own right. He regaled me with the tale of the Gate of Betrayal and his fight with Genbu with aplomb, sparing time for metaphor and description without losing the momentum of the fight. I admit I enjoyed listening to his silken voice and his adept wordplay, but when he handed the reins of the narrative to Kuwabara, the story didn't suffer. Kuwabara stood up and stomped around, mimicking Byakko's heavy gait, acting out all the parts in his section of the story using character voices and pantomime. Quite the contrast to Kurama's subdued retelling, but damn if it wasn't fucking hilarious to watch.
Hilarious—and utterly shocking.
While Kurama's fight had run nigh identically to the anime, Kuwabara's did not. In fact, his retelling of his fight ended when he overloaded Byakko with spirit energy, skipping the lava chamber round of his fight entirely. It started off with Byakko siccing some demonic cats on Kuwabara (which he defeated using a Monster Beast Donut, natch), but I did a double-take when Kuwabara ended his story with Byakko reacting to an overload of Kuwabara's energy—and skipped straight on to Hiei's fight with Seiryu.
"Wait, wait, back up," I said. "So you figured out that Byakko was absorbing your energy, you fed him a bunch of yours…and he just exploded and that was it? Really?"
"Yeah! Apparently I gave him so much power that his body went nuts and panicked. Forced out most of his own power along with mine, just BOOM. Big sonic blast as all the energy left him. He shredded, nearly, got all bony and skinny and just passed out." He chortled some more, looking at Kurama for confirmation. "Collapsed a lot of the castle in the process, but we made it out."
"And then Seiryu killed Byakko when Byakko reappeared in the depths of the maze, asking for aid," Kurama said.
Kuwabara nodded. "Right."
"I'm…wow." Words failed me. I sat there processing until a smile welled, excitement building high inside my chest. "Dude. Wow, Kuwabara. You were a certified badass!"
His laughter sounded like rocks in a blender in the best way possible, deep and gravely as he blushed and rubbed the back of his wide neck. "Aw, shucks, Keiko. I tried my best, that's all!" He sobered to give credit where he deemed it due, saying, "Genkai's training sure did help, though. Dunno that I would've put up even half the same fight without her."
"I'm sure you still would've done great, all the same," I assured him—because it was true. He'd done great in the anime even without her help, combining ingenuity and strength to defeat opponents who perhaps outclassed him. He'd been a badass in his own right long before Genkai's training.
Now, though?
Now he was Super Kuwabara.
How fucking cool.
Kurama picked up the story where Kuwabara left off, and by the time they reached the end, I got the impression that the mission had followed the track of the anime almost exactly…though the details of Yusuke's fight with Suzaku were still unknown given his ongoing impression of Sleeping Beauty. When the story ended we discussed the probability of him waking up (and discussed a plan to prank him upon said waking, which Kuwabara in particular felt most excited about). While Kuwabara cackled at my suggestion of fake blood and Kurama laughed behind one demure hand, I wondered when I'd finally get to see all my friends together in one place, in the flesh.
That image of them together on the communicator mirror had been nothing but a tease.
The afternoon passed too quickly for my taste. As the square of illumination coming from the window climbed nearly to the ceiling, a nurse bustled into usher the boys out. Visiting hours had ended, and with them, my reprieve from the hospital's crushing isolation.
"Thank you for visiting today," I said as they gathered their things. "It was so good to see you both."
Kurama nodded, smile warm and lingering—but Kuwabara stepped between us, blocking my view of the fox demon with his bulk. His hands wrung, chiseled face pinched with nerves as he stared down at me.
"Keiko—Kurama explained some of it, but we still need to talk," he said. "I need to know how you know Kurama and Hiei. Like, properly know, y'know?"
I offered a conciliatory smile. "I know. But later." Point at the clock on the wall. "No time today, I'm afraid."
"Right," he said, reaching for the backpack he'd set by my bed—but as he hefted it over his shoulder, his eyes lit up. Setting the bag next to me on the bed, he unzipped it and said, "Oh. Here!"
I peered into the bag's depths when he opened it in my direction. "What's this?"
"I took Yusuke's Famicon!" he proclaimed, gesturing at the plastic box and tangled wires inside his backpack. "So you can play some games while you're stuck in bed."
I said nothing. Then, slowly, I raised my eyes to his and said in perfect deadpan: "You stole from Yusuke to make me happy?"
Kuwabara's smile faded. "Um…?"
My eyes welled. "Kuwabara, that's the sweetest thing anyone's ever done for me!"
If his earlier blush had been blistering, this blush was nigh atomic. "A-anytime, Keiko," he said—and he bent to briefly hug me, arms strong and tight around my torso. He pulled away with a stammer and walked out the door, mechanical as a robot, without making eye contact. "Um. See ya! And get well soon!"
I stared after him with a sniffle, drying my eyes on the edge of my hospital gown, because Kuwabara was the sweetest damned thing in the whole wide world and I felt like a lucky child, indeed. Kurama didn't follow Kuwabara right away, lingering near the door as I grabbed the backpack and rooted through it, but he didn't say anything—not even when I glanced at him and shook my head.
"Hmm. Didn't get Dragon Quest," I lamented, though several other awesome games sat at the bottom of the bag. "I'll have to ask Kuwabara to bring—"
"You shouldn't say things like that."
My hands stilled, fingers tangled in the Famicon's power cord. Kurama stared at me with lips pursed, arms crossed over his chest like a teacher about to scold a naughty student. My brow lifted on reflex.
"Things like what?" I asked.
"You have made it clear to me you have no intention of dating at your age." Kurama spoke in that clipped way he did when he was trying to say exactly the right thing, even when he knew it wasn't something you wanted to hear. "As such, I think you should be careful of saying things that could get Kuwabara's hopes up."
For a second, I wasn't sure what he meant. "His hopes—?" I said, but then it clicked. "Oh. Oh!" I flapped a hand and laughed, head shaking. "Kurama, you've got it all wrong. Kuwabara doesn't like me!"
One red brow climbed high. "Are you certain of that?"
"Of course I'm—"
The word 'sure' fizzled in my mouth, however, before I could say it aloud.
Much though I hated to admit it…it was certainly possible Kuwabara had a little crush. Yusuke had hinted at it before, and now Kurama was saying it, and where there was smoke there was often fire. But the thing was, Kuwabara had crushed on both Keiko and Botan in the anime—and those crushes had evaporated like mist in brilliant sunlight the second he laid eyes on Yukina.
If Kuwabara had a crush on me, it hardly mattered, did it?
"Well, even if he does," I wound up saying, "it won't matter for long."
Kurama's brow knit. "What makes you say that?"
I held up one hand, little finger extended. Kurama's brow unknit and lifted high, inquiring just what the heck I was getting at.
"The red pinkie string of love," I explained, but my cheeks pinked at how ridiculous that must sound to someone like Kurama. Scratching the back of my neck, eyes cast away toward the window, I muttered, "Kuwabara is, uh…he is tied to someone else."
Kurama said, tone flat, "I don't understand."
I put my pinkie to my mouth. "Spoilers."
"…I see." Although he did not seem happy about it, he gave a delicate sigh and pressed a finger to his temple. "Well, I hope you're right." Green eyes pinned me with a cold stare. "For his sake."
It wasn't often Kurama looked at me with such disdain anymore, so I admit his expression rendered me speechless. He just sighed again, however, and once more rubbed his temple.
"Apologies," he said, "for not bringing you flowers this visit. I will remedy the oversight when next we meet." He turned toward the door—and perhaps he did so on purpose to make up for glaring at me, but the cold vanished from his eyes, replaced by subtle warmth I knew better than to miss. "Be well, Kei."
I swallowed.
"You too, Kurama," I said.
The room felt barer after my friends left. It somehow felt smaller even when fewer people filled it, too, like the walls had crept close while Kurama and Kuwabara distracted me from their advance. I slid down in my bed, sling clinking and creaking as I shifted my casted leg. The backpack with the Famicon pressed into my side; my head lolled toward the sunflowers Kagome brought me, sitting haphazard in the ice bucket and water glasses, stars fallen to earth to brighten my dingy room.
"You shouldn't say things like that," Kurama had said.
But all I'd done was thank Kuwabara for the Famicon—and was that really so wrong?
I shut my eyes with a sigh, draping an elbow across my face to block out the overhead lights.
I had lived a long time, at that point. I'd been in too many relationships to mention. I knew how to separate friendship from romance, separate the love and care of camaraderie from the pull of romantic adoration. I knew how to be friends with people I found attractive, and how to keep attraction from ruining a good friendship (heck, I'd been in love with too many straight girls to not learn that valuable skill). I'd had more practice than I liked to admit compartmentalizing emotions for the good of my relationships, a skill learned from one too many heartbreaks suffered before I found my Tom.
Was Kuwabara capable of the same compartmentalization?
And, hell—was this even an issue worth dwelling on?
The Saint Beast Arc was over. The Rescue Yukina Arc barreled toward us at breakneck speed. At any moment Kuwabara could watch the mission's information video tape, and when he did, he'd forget any feelings he might have for me. He'd forget everything but the all-encompassing, fiery passion he felt for that sweet ice demon, no room left in his enormous heart for any love but hers.
He'd still value me as a friend, of course. Kuwabara was too good a person to ever stop being my friend, the way so many people ceased to be attentive friends once they found a relationship. But the fact remained that I would only have him to myself for a short while longer—and that he'd forget me soon enough.
It wasn't wrong of me to cherish the time we had left, was it?
I certainly didn't think so—no matter what Kurama had to say on the matter.
When a nurse came by, I asked her to set up the Famicon, and I played it nearly until the sun came up.
The hospital discharged me the next day, and the first thing I did upon returning home was call Atsuko. She picked up on the third ring (which was good because sometimes she didn't pick up at all) and didn't sound at all surprised when I said, "Hey. He awake yet?"
"No." A clink as a bottle knocked against the phone's receiver. "Any of you want to tell me why my son is in a coma? Again?"
Her wry delivery pulled both a laugh and a wince out of me. "I think it's best we leave that to Yusuke."
"Eh. Suit yourselves." Another clink as she drank. "I'll call when he wakes up, if you want. No sense in you chasing after that lay-about son of mine when you've got schoolwork."
"They shut down the school for the next week, actually, so I'm free as a bird." Administration needed time to clean the blood off the walls, I guessed. "I'll call again later."
"That's my Keiko, I suppose," she said with a raucous laugh. "Responsible to the very end."
We hung up after a few more pleasantries, and afterward I sat on my bed in silent thought, leg propped up on a pillow. Today was the second day of Yusuke's recovery-coma (so long as he stuck to the anime's three-day-coma prediction). He'd wake up sometime tomorrow, in that case.
…so what the hell was I supposed to do now?
I thought about calling Kurama or Kuwabara for some company, but getting in contact with Sailor V seemed much more important than hosting another social event. But I had no idea how to contact Sailor V at all, and she'd told me that she'd be the one to get in touch, so—
I picked up my phone again, punching in Kagome's number from memory. Just as it began to ring, however, Mom's voice echoed up the stairs. I set the phone back in the cradle and yelled back, "Yes, Mom?"
"Keiko, honey? You have a friend here to visit you! Don't get up; I'll send them upstairs!"
I sat up a little straighter, arranging blankets over my lap and fixing the collar of my shirt. Feet pattered up the stairs two at a time, by the sound of it, light and agile instead of Yusuke or Kuwabara's normal pound. Kurama always climbed the stairs without making a sound, and since Hiei never bothered with the stairs at all, that could only mean—
My door inched open, and through the resulting crack poked a small, pale face dusted in freckles.
"Are they here?" Kagome whispered.
I bit back a laugh. Speak of the devil and she shall appear. "No. Just me."
"Oh, thank Christ." She scampered inside and shut the door behind her, sliding down the panel and onto the floor (before reaching back up and locking the door as a hasty afterthought, of course). She blurted, "So the worst case scenario happened sooner than we'd like, but do you think he recognized me?"
"He definitely thought you looked familiar," I told her, "but he also seemed to think it was just his imagination…but then again, he's a good actor." I grimaced, dread an icy pit in my chest. "Basically, I will live in fear of the subject for the foreseeable future."
"Oh, man," Kagome moaned, but just as quickly she perked up, speaking with nearly frantic optimism—as if pleading with me to be optimistic with her, validate her defense against her fears. "But I mean, it was 500 years ago. 500! Even somebody as smart as him wouldn't remember the face of a girl he met just the once 500 years ago, right?"
I took a deep breath and asked, "Well…was it just once?"
Kagome stilled. "What do you mean?"
"Do you think you may have encountered him again in the past?" I said. Kagome wasn't in tears, not like the last time we'd talked about this subject, and so I voiced my hypotheticals with impunity. "The you of right now has met him once, but who's to say that was the last time you saw him? Or the last time he saw you?" Time travel, so hard to describe in words, made me shake my head. "Your future is his past, after all."
Kagome shuddered, hands threading through her thick hair. "Don't tell me that, Eeyore."
"Sorry," I said, and while I meant it for stressing her, I was glad I'd at last voiced my concerns. Much though I wanted to respect Kagome's recent traumas, we couldn't hide the hard truths forever. Time to wake the sleeping dog. "I'll let you know if he asks more questions, though."
"Yeah," she mumbled. She looked up, hands still in here hair, face grim. "And hey, sorry I didn't call before coming over today. I just couldn't stand to wait any longer." She rolled forward and darted to my bed, hopping atop the mattress like a tiger with springs for heels—but she was careful not to jostle my leg. "Tell me everything about what happened!" Kagome chirped.
"You first," I said. "V said you're the one who called her."
"Oh. Well. That's sort of true." She pointed at my leg. "But I really want to hear about your ordeal before I tell you my boring bit!"
Much though I wanted to get to the bottom of Kagome's adventures, I decided to indulge her request. She listened with rapt attention to my recollection of events, gasping and cheering where appropriate, but remaining respectfully quiet of my story—until we got to Botan's entrance. At that Kagome's jaw dropped, legs kicking, flailing around on the bed as words failed her.
"A third eye?" she said, thrashing. "A third eye! That's nuts!"
"You're telling me," I said. "But wait. It gets worse."
"How can it possibly get worse?!"
I told her. I told her about Botan berserking, fighting the infected, and Ayame's assertion that Botan got worse when she came to save me. Kagome looked appropriately horrified, but when I told her about V showing up and taking Botan to safety, her disturbed expression faded into one of awe.
"Oh. Oh wow. She sounds like a badass, even if you didn't see her do anything…y'know. Anything impressive?" She giggled. "That's too funny. V showed up to save you and then did nothing at all!"
"Yeah. She jumped off a roof just as the infected passed out. Definitely not a stunning entrance." I crossed my arms, staring past Kagome at the wall by my bedroom door. Johnny Cash flipped me off from his poster, the same way V's anticlimactic entrance had flipped off all her heroic intentions. "But the thing is, I get this sense she's sort of a badass, even if all she did was jump in and distract the infected for all of eight seconds."
"Really?" Kagome asked. "How's that?"
"I think she's former military."
She blinked, thrown for a momentary loop. "Military?"
"She asked me for my rank and station." Uncertainty gripped me. "Those are military terms, right?"
Kagome hummed. "I think so?"
Confirmation settled some of the doubt suffusing my chest. "OK, cool. And I started to have a panic attack, too. She asked if it was the first time I'd seen combat, and she said she'd seen someone react to combat like that before."
Her eyes widened. For a second I couldn't tell if she felt scared or excited, but then she broke out in an enormous, eager grin.
"Wow," she said. "Wow, Eeyore! A badass soldier girl in the body of a pretty sailor soldier! That's amazing!"
"I also think she's not American," I continued. "She said something to me in, like, German? Or Russian? Slavic, I guess."
Kagome's brown furrowed, head tilting to one side like a dog unsure of a sound. "Is German a Slavic language?"
"Uh…I don't actually know." It was my turn to tilt my head, blink at her like a confused puppy. "Maybe?"
Kagome and I stared at one another, until she flipped to her back and threw her arm across her face, moaning, "Dammit, 1990! Give me Google or give me death!" She lifted her arm to batt her eyes and pout. "Can we please invent Google, Eeyore? Please?"
I grinned. "That's—"
Our tech-talk had to end when a knock sounded at the door. Kagome sat up, eyes meeting mine as my mother called, "Keiko? You sure are popular today—you have another visitor!"
We stiffened in unison, and I'm not sure which one of us looked more horrified. "Who is it, Mom?" I managed to say, and to my surprise my voice held steady even as I contemplated the logistics of tossing Kagome out my bedroom window.
"I haven't met him yet, actually," Mom said, "but he looks closer to your friend Kagome's age than yours."
Just as we'd stiffened as one, so too did we frown. I didn't know anyone Kagome's age but Kagome, and she looked as confused as I felt. At her I mouthed, "Did you bring…?"
But Kagome shook her head.
"Then who…?"
Kagome shook her head again.
Well, that was weird. To Mom I called, "Did you get his name?"
"Yes, I—"
Mom stopped talking. A few seconds of silence followed. Kagome's head turned in increments toward the door, concern etching lines across her forehead.
"I'm…sorry, sweetheart," Mom said eventually. "I did ask, but…I can't seem to remember it." Although she laughed, the shrill edge in her voice said she didn't find it funny at all. "Silly me. I must not have been listening too closely."
"That's OK, Mom," I said, but my stomach churned like I'd swallowed a mouthful of bees. "Don't send him up. I'll be right down."
"Oh, honey, don't walk on your—"
"I'm getting stir-crazy in here, anyway, and Kagome will help me." The aforementioned nodded like a bobble-head doll. "I'll be just a second."
"Well, if you're sure…"
We waited for her footsteps to fade down the stairs before speaking. Kagome managed to get words our first. "Who do you think…?"
"No idea." My mind roved, but the only person I could think of near Kagome's age was—
No.
Not him, surely?
My internal horror must've shown on my face, because Kagome put a hand on my knee. "What, Eeyore?" she said, urgent and low. "What is it?"
I gulped. "You don't think—Hiruko?"
Kagome didn't react for a moment. Then, slowly, her hand on my knee clenched into a tight fist.
"If it's him," Kagome said, in a voice more intense and dangerous and dark than I'd ever heard from her before, "he might not leave your restaurant alive."
"…I get why you want him dead—really, I do—but please try to keep blood off the walls if you murder him in the restaurant, OK?" I mimed choking myself. "Just, like, limit his death to strangulation or something?"
Kagome's dark eyes didn't lighten a single shade—not even when she hopped off my bed, saluted, and marched over to my crutches in the corner on steps that bounced.
She helped me down the stairs in uncharacteristic silence, eyes still hard and fierce, and when we made it to the restaurant floor she scanned the patrons eating at the tables like a lion on the hunt. We took a table nearest the stairwell so I wouldn't have to walk too far. Kagome kept her hand on my back as I lowered into a chair, puffing with exertion and pain, scanning the restaurant with those intense eyes of hers.
"I don't see anyone," she grumbled.
I looked, too. Mostly middle-aged people, some elders, a few couples with little kids. No one Kagome's age, though—and certainly no little brats with pink hair and red kimonos.
"Me neither." I grabbed my crutches and started to haul myself up, grunting. "Let me go ask Mom if—"
Kagome thrust out her hand.
"Wait," she said—and she pointed near the kitchen, around the corner to the restaurant entrance.
Standing there, wearing blue slacks and a button-down white shirt, stood a boy.
He looked about Kagome's age, or maybe a year or two older—never have been good with ages, or kids, or kids' ages, so it was hard to tell. His white shirt had been freshly ironed, pants crisp and pleated, a red tie tied in a tight Windsor knot under his collar. He'd combed his short blond hair with neat strokes, posture upright and straight and natural, every inch a well-mannered little schoolboy whose mother had dressed him that morning. Nothing out of the ordinary, truth be told, except for that blonde hair—and that just meant he was gaijin. Not a big deal, right?
In short: It wasn't Hiruko, and I'd never seen him before in my life.
"Him?" Kagome whispered.
I sat back in my seat with a grunt. "I don't recognize him."
"Me, neither," said Kagome.
In the end, however, it didn't matter that neither of us had seen him before.
From across the restaurant, he spotted us, and he started walking.
Didn't take long to reach us, of course, and when he did he dropped into a low, tight bow—but I hardly noticed. He walked, for lack of better comparison, like Kurama or Hiei. That same purposeful stride, no movements wasted, the predatory stalk of someone accustomed to tracking prey instead of being it. A skated up my back, hair on my arms rising to swift attention.
This kid—just who the hell was he?
Not that I got a chance to ask. The kid took initiative as soon as he straightened from his bow, heels of his polished shoes snapping together with a smart click.
"Keiko. Kagome." Bright blue eyes traveled between us in turns. "It's good to see you both."
"Is it?" I muttered.
"I'm sorry, but have we met before?" Kagome said.
"Keiko and I have." His eyes settled on me. "Though you and I have only a passing acquaintance."
"…we do?"
"Yes."
I studied his face a moment, trying to place him, but nothing came to me. He looked like the most typical blonde-haired, blue-eyed kid imaginable—the kind of face you'd remember in Japan just because it belonged to a gaijin, and the kind of face I wouldn't have glanced at twice in America. Even his voice was typical, Japanese fluent and clear, tone light and high and utterly, blandly typical of a kid his age.
"Sorry, kid," I said after a moment's contemplation. "But I don't think we've met."
"We met the other night," he said. At that his lips crooked, just the barest of smiles you'd miss if you so much as blinked. "I'll give you a hint: My hair was longer, and was wearing a skirt."
For a second, no one said anything.
Then Kagome said, "Huh?"
Me, though? I just stared at him, because words had become impossible to form.
Logically, it didn't take me long to realize what he meant, or connect Sailor V to the boy standing before me—but when I tried to conjure a memory of the face of the person I'd met two nights prior, the person with the long blonde hair and the flowing skirt, trying desperately to compare that face to this boy's, nothing came to me. I recalled the hair, the outfit, and the red domino mask, but behind the mask…nothing. A complete blank, fuzzy at the edges, slipping in and out of view when I tried to look at it too hard, like trying to grasp incorporeal jello with your bare hands.
I put a hand to my head.
"Oh," I said. Then I met his eyes, and I said: "Oh!"
Another crooked, almost-not-there smile. "Now you're getting it."
"You're—it's you." I stared at him with wide eyes, brain a million miles away, barely able to think past the impossible. "But—but why can't I remember her face?"
"Eeyore?!" Kagome grasped my shoulder as if to pull questions from my skin. "Eeyore, what are you talking about? Why can't you remember whose face?"
The boy made a low 'ah' sound under his breath. One hand disappeared into his pocket, pulling from it a golden object that glimmered in the restaurant's overhead lights. The moon-shaped compact, engraved with stars and set with a bright red jewel, reflected winks of gold into Kagome's face—the face whose expression rapidly turned from shocked to understanding.
Because even if she hadn't met Sailor V yet, she'd knew enough about Sailor Moon to know a senshi device when she saw one.
"So far as I can tell, this device emits an ultrasonic frequency that interferes with the brain's ability to recall faces," said the boy before us. "Specifically my face under…certain conditions that will remain nameless."
His knowing not-smile had me gasping in spite of myself. "You mean, you—?" I looked the boy up and down, then up and down again, trying so hard to speak but finding myself unable. "Are you—?!"
"Oh my fucking god." Kagome leapt back and pointed at the boy, and said what I could not. "Oh my god, you're Sailor V!"
The boy smiled—for real, this time, and suddenly he looked like the Sailor Scout I'd meet two nights before.
"Yes. I am," he said, and he thrust out a hand. "My name is Minato, and it's nice to meet you properly."
NOTES:
SO many thanks to all of you who reviewed last week. Knowing you're reading and supporting this story means the word: MissIdeophobia, Dawn17, Yakiitori, Counting Sinful Stars, mikklystar, Bergholt Stuttley Johnson, Scarlet Mystic, Sunshark, Shadow Katakura, MemeLord5000, rya-fire1, MetroNeko, wennifer-lynn, Kimimakku, tatewaki2000, Laina Inverse, rikku92, Just 2 Dream of You, Lil Hamari, MyMidnightShadow, brave-story, zubhanwc3, xenocanaan, Lady Rini, racnor, Toushou-sama, Dreaming Traveler, WaYaADisi1, DiCuoreAllisa, Shen0, Marian, Mayacompany, Viviene001, buzzk97, Kyrie Twilight, Alya Tinuviel, Kaylamarie517, Tsarashi, Selias, general zargon, Kaiya Azure, MLeggyLeaf, KhaleesiRenee, yofa, Silverwing013, giant salamander, ahyeon, AnimePleaseGood, and two guests!
