Warnings: First section implies possible sexual assault, though it's not at all explicit in any capacity.
Lucky Child
Chapter 63:
"Out of My Hands"
It was January, I was nineteen years old, and as the snow crunched under the soles of our shoes, Kristie "Tell Me Your Whole Life Story" Baker was telling us her whole life story.
Lucky for me I'd brought a flask of cheap rum along to keep me company while Kristie ranted. I snuck nips of booze as I walked ahead of my friends, nursing a healthy buzz as Kristie buzzed away. Something about the time she met one of the Real Housewives and how it related to the first pet goldfish she'd ever had, not to mention the death of her great aunt and the time she got her first period, or something—Kristie's stories never followed any internal logic, meandering from intimately personal topic to intimately personal topic like a river cut by millennia of oblivious, oversharing glaciers. My friends (well, my friend and the acquaintance she'd brought with her), listened to Kristie in polite silence and were about as animated as glaciers, themselves, but no one stopped Kristie as she drunkenly rambled on our walk to the Delta frat house. Becky checked her phone a lot (Kristie didn't notice) but Timothy nodded along and tried to look engaged.
"So that's when my parents decided to get a divorce," said Kristie "Tell Me Your Whole Life Story" Baker. "They'd been fighting for a long time, and—"
"Sorry to hear about your parents," Timothy said, making a brave show of sounding something other than totally, totally bored. "That must have been rough."
Kristie paused. Since silence from her was a rare sound indeed, I glanced at her over my shoulder to witness this most evasive of phenomena. She'd stopped walking, crunching boots gone silent, fluffy pink parka unzipped down to her navel. She looked Timothy up, then down. It didn't take very long. He was 5'1, at least six inches shorter than Kristie even when she wasn't wearing her heeled and fur-lined fashion boots, and a full nine inches shorter than me. She blinked her mascara-covered lashes at him and smiled. Timothy smiled back, uncertain.
"You know," Kristie declared. "Timothy, you're nice and all, but I'd never, ever date you—because you're so fucking short!"
Perhaps if I hadn't been drinking that night, I would have reacted differently. Perhaps I would have thought first, defended Timothy later, because I barely knew him and my only interaction with him before that night had been during freshman orientation, where he'd proven to be an annoying asshole I didn't much care for—but because I was drinking, and because my rum stash was mostly depleted at that point, blood roared in my ears like an angry manticore and I found myself wheeling on Kristie with a sigh of disgust.
"You know," I said, words as distant as if I heard myself speaking from the other end of a bad phone connection, "you limit yourself like that, reject people for shallow-ass reasons like their height, you might be missin' out on the best sex of your life."
Timothy gaped at me. Alex gaped at me. Becky looked up from her phone like a startled baby deer.
"So fuckin' what if he's short?" I said. "For all you know, this guy right here—" (at that I pointed at Timothy, who still gaped at me like a beached sturgeon) "—he could be your goddamn soulmate for all you know, and you're rejectin' him because he's short? He didn't even say he was interested, and you're rejectin' him because he's short?" My head shook, hood flopping off, scalp at once suffused with cold. "I feel sorry for ya, Kristie. You're gonna have a hard time findin' anyone with a sorry attitude like that."
I reached into my back pocket and pulled out my flask, rattling open the top and tipping it back to get the final drops of rum. Everybody stared; I wiped my mouth on my wrist and shook my flask.
"I'm goin' back," I said. "Gonna get a top-off. Y'all want anything?"
"Where are you from?" Kristie asked. She looked me up and down, which took longer than it had taken with Timothy since I was ten inches taller than him even in just my snowboots. "What's that accent?"
I cursed; my Southern must have slipped. It did that when I got angry. I pushed past her and shrugged, content to let her revel in the mysteries of my origin.
"Wait!" said Timothy, and he trotted after me.
Later on, after I doubled back for more rum and then went to the party at Delta house with Timothy in tow, Becky pulled me aside. "Careful," she warned me. "Timothy's going to take that the wrong way."
I'd had even more rum at that point; my words came slow and slurred. "Take what the wrong way?"
"You defending his height to Kristie. He'll think you're interested."
"Pffft!" The booze-soaked laugh echoed in the frat's tiny kitchen, beer bottles shining like stars on the countertop. "Kristie was being a dick!"
"That's not the point."
"I was telling her off, not defending him!" I said, because that was the truth. "I was being nice, not hitting on him. I mean, he had to know that, right?"
She stared at me—and then her eyes shifted over my shoulder. I turned to look, brows raised.
Across the room, Timothy's wide blue eyes trained unmoving upon me. He smiled when he saw me looking and raised a glass in my direction.
I waved back, but I didn't smile.
"Just be careful," Becky murmured.
I promised her I would. I rejoined the party, was as nice to Timothy as I was to everyone else in the house, and when he asked me for my phone number, I gave it to him—stressing the word friend at every opportunity. Because surely that would be enough.
I was nineteen years old. I thought stressing friendship would be enough to let Timothy down easy. I thought stressing I liked girls (because at that point I didn't want much to do with men) would be enough to put him off of me. I thought those things would be enough to keep him at bay, to telegraph my disinterest, to make him forget the night I'd defended him, because what Kristie had said to him was awful, and defending him had been the right thing to do.
Two months later I woke up naked on the floor of a dorm room, unable to recall the night before. My mouth tasted like cotton and vodka. Bruises spotted my hips like the marks of a leopard. Timothy sat next to me, naked.
"You're my girlfriend now," he informed me as he handed me my clothes—clothes I had no memory of taking off.
I told him I wasn't interested, and that our encounter—whatever it had entailed, because I had no memory if it—had been a mistake.
Timothy didn't like that.
Timothy stalked me for months, but because he was so fucking short, both my friends and the police laughed in my face when I said I feared for my safety—until the day he cornered me at a party and tried to give me a black eye. He missed, because I stepped back and out of the reach of his stubby arm.
Thank god he was so fucking short, I guess.
Just as I predicted, the video showed nothing more interesting than static and fuzz as it played on my TV screen—and yet Amagi watched with rapt attention from her seat on my bedrooms floor. I watched her in turn, studying her reactions to images I could not see. She paled a little after a few minutes, and then she thumbed the pause button on the VCR. Fuzz fixed in place like a snowstorm frozen solid.
"There's a corrupt billionaire with the face of a malformed baboon in the mountains north of here. He's holding an ice apparition named Yukina hostage," she said. Her voice adopted the faintest of tremors. "When she cries, her tears turn to priceless gems. He—he tortures her to get them."
She put a hand to her mouth, so I put a hand on her shoulder. I'd gone straight to Amagi with the video tape once Ayame left me alone. Part of me wondered if that had been the right decision, but on short notice I wasn't sure who else I could go to. Time was of the essence. Every minute Yukina spent with the monster Tarukane was another minute of hell.
"I'm sorry, Amagi," I said, and I meant every word. "I'm so sorry you had to hear that. The tape—it wasn't graphic, was it?"
She shook her head. "No. Not at all."
"Then why…?"
"Just—the look on her face. That look of pain and sadness." Her eyes fixed on the TV. "She's too lovely to look so sad."
I looked to the TV, too, but once more I saw nothing. My eyes played tricks on me, for a moment suggesting the outline of a head, the curve of a jaw, the round of a shoulder—but I blinked and it vanished. Wishful thinking, probably. If only I was psychic…
Amagi said nothing for a minute or so, just staring at the screen. I put a hand over hers; she jumped.
"I'm so sorry to make you do this," I said.
Again, she shook her head. "Don't be. You warned me there would be no going back if I learned the truth."
"That I did."
"And I asked to learn it, anyway." She pulled a knee to her chest, wrapping her arms around it for comfort. "I've got no one to blame by myself."
But was that really true? She'd come to me weeks prior, firm in her desire to know the truth even after all my warnings, and I'd told her the basics as best I could. Spirit World, Demon World, demons, ghosts…and Amagi had just nodded along, undisturbed.
"That explains things," she'd confessed when I told her what I could. "I've seen women on oars near hospitals and at the scenes of accidents. I've seen little horned men with blue skin climb into people's mouths and then watched their behavior change. I've seen more ghosts than I can count, more tanukis vanishing from sight than I care to mention." And she'd shrugged when I'd asked if she was OK, like my revelations hadn't been a big deal at all. "All you've done is given me more context. I can't regret that."
I certainly hoped she'd never come to regret it. But time would tell, as time is wont to do.
Amagi uncurled her leg and pressed "play" once more. Her lips moved, eyes roving across the screen as the static began its soothing, fuzzy dance. Every now and then she'd speak, pausing between thoughts as the video showed her more and more: details about Yukina's imprisonment; more information about her background in the world of ice; shots of Tarukane's ugly face, which she described with utter revulsion.
"There are directions to the compound where she's being held," she said. "And that's it, I think—wait. No. One final thing." Amagi's eyes narrowed and she leaned close to the screen. "Yukina is the sister of someone named Hiei. And this Koenma person seems disturbed by that. He says under no circumstances can Hiei watch this tape—but he wants Hiei to deliver it to Yusuke?" At that she heaved an indelicate snort. "That's a horrible idea. Koenma thinks it will throw Hiei off the scent, but I think it's stupid." She sighed, watched a bit more of the fuzz, then pushed the "eject" button. "Nothing else of note, although Koenma should be wary of copyright infringement. He ripped off the MGM logo in the credits." But she shook her head and turned to me with a frown. "Who is Hiei?"
I grimaced, wondering how much I should say. Eventually I settled on: "A very, very grumpy friend of mine."
"A demon?"
"…yeah."
Amagi's lips twisted. "No need to hide it. Of course he's a demon, if he has a demon for a sister." Once more she glanced at the TV, even though the screen had gone dark. "Yukina looked human enough. When you first told me about demons, I thought of oni. Ogres from fairy tale. And the little imps I've seen around town, too."
"Some do look like that," I said. "They come in hundreds of varieties, and some are more human than others. Yukina is definitely on the human side."
Her pale brow furrowed. "You say that like you've seen her face before."
Amagi was too smart for her own good. I covered my unease with a shrug and a hasty lie. "I assumed she'd look human since her brother looks human. But anyway." Time for a swift subject change, methinks. "Thanks for watching that for me. I hate not being psychic."
Amagi nodded, and for some reason she looked at me with concern—as though she feared for me, and perhaps she did. "It would be helpful for you to be psychic, all things considered."
"Totally," I agreed.
Too bad for me no amount of psychic power would help me figure out what to do next, nor how to handle the situation that had been dumped by right into my unwilling lap.
Of course, I'd wondered about this story arc before, back when I first entered the world of Yu Yu Hakusho and created my multitude of canon journals. The thing was, I'd assumed the video tape would be given to Hiei himself, not to me—because I most certainly hadn't anticipated becoming Yusuke's Record Keeper and all-around helper. Now I had to decide if I should tell Hiei what was on the tape, and if I should give it to him in the first place…because canon hadn't revealed how Hiei found out about the tape's contents. Did he watch it himself, read Yusuke's mind, spy on Yusuke while he watched the tape? I wasn't sure, and those uncertainties complicated an already complex situation.
In the end, though, I decided to Occam's Razor the shit out of the situation and just make it simple. And I did so by waiting for Hiei to show up to our weekly meeting (a meeting Botan hadn't attended ever since Hiei's rebuke) and handed the tape to him without a word.
Well, I tried to hand it to him. Hiei acted like Hiei and didn't accept my offerings. Instead he eyed the cassette in its white sleeve like it might grow a mouth and bite him, saying "What in the world is that?" with all the disgust of an emperor presented with non-name-brand clothes.
I sighed and set the tape atop the crate where Hiei would sit to eat. "Spirit World told me to give it to you." I didn't look at him while I spoke, concentrating on setting up our evening meal of ramen and our dinette set of empty produce crates. Hiei had graduated back to actual bowls instead of plastic; he'd been stealing them less now that Botan wasn't around to annoy him and make him bolt. Arranging chopsticks on the crates I said, "They said you should deliver it to Yusuke."
"To the Detective?"
"Yes."
His growl sounded like annoyance personified. "But you see him all the time. Why can't you take it?"
I couldn't keep my eyes away. Shooting him the most what-do-you-want-from-me look I could muster, I said, "This is what Spirit World has asked me to do, Hiei. It's not my idea."
He appeared most thoroughly unconvinced. "But why would they want me to deliver it?"
At that I could only shrug and tuck into my dinner, just so I wouldn't have to look at him anymore—because if I kept looking, I was sure I'd give myself away.
"Spirit World likes to play games," I said.
I spoke with care, of course. I tried not to lie, but I tried not to give anything away, and speaking in a near-nonsense riddle felt like appropriate middle ground. But when Hiei didn't reply, didn't berate me for not speaking sense, I felt an itch on the back of my neck. Swatting at it didn't make it go away—and with the ponderous weight of dread draped across my shoulders, I lifted my eyes to Hiei's.
His stare had teeth—teeth and the kind of heat you found at the heart of a furnace, searing and solid and deep. Hiei wasn't stupid. He wasn't a particularly introspective person, sure, but he wasn't stupid by any means. His eyes flickered to my throat when I swallowed, and in response his lips curled at the corners.
He knew.
As soon as I saw the curve of his mouth, that knowing sneer that said the game was over, I knew that he knew. He knew I had to be up to something, or at least that there was something I wasn't saying, and on purpose.
The itch on my nape, right at the base of my skull, intensified.
Hiei said nothing, however. He sat atop his crate (after nudging the tape aside with his foot) and ate his meal in silence, staring at me with unblinking eyes as I tried desperately not to think about the damn video tape. Of course, that became all that I could think about, and as soon as Hiei finished his foot he swiped the tape off the ground and stowed it in the depths of his billowing cloak.
"Be seeing you," he said, curt and rough and biting—and then he vanished, the breeze of his passing ruffling my hair with a breath of hot air.
I barely slept that night.
This situation was as out of my hands as that damn video tape.
Based on the timeline established by the anime, Hiei would contact Yusuke and hand over the tape sometime in the morning, before Yusuke went to school. I distinctly remembered Yusuke bringing the tape to school, where Kuwabara would ask if it was a porno (ew) and Keiko would remark that they couldn't bring video tapes to school…only in this reality, Keiko didn't go to Yusuke's school, unable to drag him to class or ensure his attendance.
Well. Almost unable.
He answered the phone just before the answering machine could kick in, and he sounded sleepy as hell. "Jeez, Keiko," he said through a muffled yawn. "It's barely after dawn!"
"…Yusuke, it's almost 8."
"Yeah! Dawn!" Another yawn; I could picture his bed-head, for once free of gel and soft. "What do you even want this early?"
"Just an assurance you're going to go to school today. Atsuko said your attendance has been terrible ever since you got back from Genkai's."
I could feel his disdain radiating through the phone. "School I stupid and I hate it."
"I know," I said, scolding and soothing all at once. "But at least graduate middle school, all right? It's one thing to not attend high school in this country, but middle school…"
"Yeah, yeah, I get it, I get it." His voice pitched up in nasal mimicry of mine. "No one takes a middle school dropout seriously, blah blah blah!"
"Well, at least you've been listening to me some of the time," I grumbled. "But you'll be late if you don't leave soon."
"Kind of hard to leave when I've got a naggy grandma keeping me on the phone."
"So hang up and hustle, dipshit!"
"Fine, I will!" he said, and he slammed the phone into the cradle.
It wasn't the most encouraging of calls, but Yusuke feared my wrath and would probably (hopefully) go to school today—and since I could do basically nothing else to ensure his attendance, I hung up the phone and headed off for Meiou.
Out of my hands. This whole damn thing was out of my hands, and all I could do was wait.
Kurama noticed, of course, that I wasn't my usual chipper self. My thoughts lived with Yusuke and Hiei, their whereabouts and Hiei's curiosity chief among my many concerns. Barely had the energy to listen to Kaito talk about his latest paper over lunch, even though I made an effort to follow along. When lunch ended Kurama fell into step beside me, eyeing me askance as we wound our way through the crowds of students coming back from lunch.
"How's your ankle?" he said.
"Hmm? Oh. It's fine." I glanced down at my foot, clad in a shoe instead of a cast. "Why?"
"You seemed distracted," he said. "I thought, perhaps, you might be in pain."
I wasn't, or at least I wasn't in any pain worth mentioning. My ankle felt stiff, unaccustomed to walking without crutches, and too much activity made it sore, but beyond that I'd mended fairly well. I shrugged and said, "Sorry, Minamino. I've got a lot on my mind."
"Care to share?"
"Not really." I tucked a bit of hair behind my ear, then realized what I was doing and grabbed my bangs, holding them in front of my nose to stare at them cross-eyed. "Yeesh. My hair's getting long. I need a cut."
He stared at the length of hair between my fingers, too, and smiled. "Perhaps a trim, if you're so inclined. I'd wondered if you were growing it out, actually."
Over the past two months I hadn't kept up with seeing Shizuru for style updates, mainly because getting to her house or her salon took too long on crutches. I blew air out of my mouth to clear the bangs from my face and hopped from foot to foot.
"What do you think?" I asked. "Hoof it to get a cut, or let it do its thing? Long hair or short?"
"I admit I'm biased." He looked at the red-black hair lying in silken coils on his shoulder; I suppressed a giggle. "The short hair suits you, however. But your hair looked lovely longer, too."
"Fat load of help you are."
He chuckled at my deadpan expression before adopting a look of suspicious innocence. "Apologies. But can you really be angry with me?"
"Hmm?"
More innocence, slathered on too think to be genuine, all mournful eyes and slumped shoulders belied by the wicked gleam in his green eye. "All I've done is say you look lovely no matter how you wear your hair," Kurama said, tone gleefully morose. "You can't fault me for that, can you?"
He was every inch a fox in that moment, not the teenage boy he pretended to be with such damning expertise. I'm certain I went crimson as I socked his shoulder and called him a cad, but Kurama only laughed before slipping away and vanishing amidst the rest of the student body.
Distracting Kurama from my state of distraction had come partially at my expense, but at the same time, I was glad to put him off the scent. It wasn't like I could let him tag along with me after school, after all—certainly not with what I had planned looming on the horizon.
Straight after school I booked it to the Kuwabara residence, and as was her custom, Shizuru answered the door mere seconds after I knocked. Pretty sure she could predict people coming even before her training with Kuroko, so now I really wouldn't put it past her. She took one look at my hair and let her eyebrow fly high.
"You here for a haircut or my brother?" she asked. "Because I hope to god it's for the hair."
Because Shizuru held the wellbeing of my hair in her hands, I thought carefully before speaking. "Can it be both?" I ventured.
"I guess." She stepped aside and gestured for me to follow her indoors. "But I'm afraid you just missed my baby bro."
With her back to me as I trailed in her wake, I didn't have to hide my stricken expression. I only had to conceal the sudden nerves in my voice when I voiced a casual, "Oh?"
"Yeah," Shizuru said. We entered the kitchen and she pulled out a chair, upon which I sat while she fetched her collection of clippers and a smock. "He and Yusuke came over to use our VCR. Watched some video tape with Botan." She walked in front of me, combing my bangs with her fingers—but she wasn't looking at my hair. "Said they got it from a guy named Hiei, who said he got it from you."
I should've known better than to play dumb. Trying to keep calm under the weight of Shizuru's glower wasn't easy. "Right. They did," I said. "Any idea what the tape was about?"
For a minute she looked confused, but then her expression cleared. "Oh. I get it. The little baby on the screen said those without spiritual sensitivity couldn't watch it, didn't he?" She combed my hair some more, tutting. "No wonder you're confused."
I was rare that I ever got to hide things from Shizuru, so I bit my tongue and hoped to hell she believed the excuse she'd cooked up for me. She wandered behind my chair and played with my hair a little longer, than grabbed a spray bottle of water and misted the strands.
"There was a girl." She put the bottle aside and hefted scissors and a comb, clipping at my hair while she talked. "Name was…Yukina, I think. Being held in the mountains by a guy who looks like a horse's ass made out of wax that melted a bit, only uglier."
My lips curled. "Colorful description."
"One he deserves." More snipping, and then Shizuru plugged in an electric razor to trim the back of my neck. "The mission was to save the girl. Pretty standard rescue operation, it sounded like. I actually thought Spirit World's bullshit would be more…what's the word? Exotic?"
"Nah. They're pretty derivative."
"I'll say. The baby guy ripped off the MGM roaring lion intro." She tutted again, somehow managing to sound disdainful over the hum of the clippers. "Still can't believe Spirit World is ruled by a toddler."
"He's about 700 years old, or so I'm told."
"Hmmph. Slow bloomer, I guess."
She set aside the razor and concentrated on the longer bits of hair atop my skull, eyes narrowed in concentration while she worked. I left her alone for a minute, even though beneath my black smock my ankles twisted together like agitated snakes. There was something I needed to know, something Shizuru could tell me about, but asking would be awkward as hell. Was there any way to pull the information out of her?
Only one way to find out.
"Right," I said when I couldn't bear the uncertainty any longer. "So…anything else?"
Her brow quirked. "What else would there be?"
"I dunno, just…" I spread my hands, fingers peeking from under the black fabric draped atop me. "Any other details I should know?"
Shizuru's lips pursed at the sound of my leading question. "You're fishing for something."
"Me?" I did my best to look confused, though inside I'd started to shake. "What would I—?"
"Don't play dumb, Keiko. You're looking for me to confirm what you already know." Damn Shizuru and her perceptiveness! So much for fooling her. Arms crossed over her vest-clad chest, unimpressed and totally not buying my ignorant act. "And the only thing I haven't mentioned yet is..."
A game of chicken started, basically. Breath bated, I sat there fidgeting under her intense gaze, waiting for her to clue me in to what she knew while she waited for me to break and confess everything. It's a good thing I'm stubborn, because eventually Shizuru sighed and hung her head, fishing in her back pocket for a cigarette. Probably just impatient and of the opinion this was a stupid contest, probably, not even worth the effort of winning.
"Fine. Be that way," she said, blowing a cloud of grey smoke toward the ceiling. "This Yukina girl knows someone we know." She studied my reaction, mouth thin. "I'm not gonna reveal how, let alone who, if you haven't guessed. Not my place."
A knot of tension unspooled in my shoulders. So she'd seen the end of the video, then, and had assumed that's the secret I already knew. "It's Hiei," I said. "And I know they're siblings."
"Smart girl." She took another drag. "That what you wanted to know?"
"Sure," I said, relieved—but the lie felt wrong, because what I actually wanted to know had nothing to do with Hiei and it had everything to do, instead, with Shizuru's brother. But was it worth shattering this successful obfuscation just to get a bit of extra intel?
…dammit all to hell, but I felt like it might be worth it.
I sighed, and I tried not to move when Shizuru came at my bangs with her scissors again. "Actually, no. It's not what I wanted to know." I took a breath to steel my nerves. "Can I be blunt?"
She didn't even pause in her work, scissors snipping in a steady rhythm. "I'd prefer that over delicate. More my style."
"Good to know." One more deep breath before I bit the bullet. "So. Your brother. How did he react to being sent on this mission?"
"What, you worried about him?" Shizuru said. "He's been on missions with Yusuke before…but I get the sense that's not why you're worried." She scanned my face, scissors at last going still, but then she shrugged and seemed to decide what she saw in my features didn't matter. "He seemed fine to go on this mission. Felt really sorry for Yukina, same as Yusuke. They left as soon as they finished watching the tape." Another sharp exhale through the nose, humored and wry. "The outro credits were as cheesy as the intro."
"I see," I said—and air caught in my lungs like the hem of a skirt on cactus. Kuwabara had felt sorry for Yukina? That was a weird way to put it. Even weirder was the notion he'd left alongside Yusuke after they finished the tape, not bounding ahead as soon as he saw her face—
Wait.
Wait just one fucking goddamn minute.
"They finished the tape?" I blurted.
Shizuru stood back when I moved in my spot, hands on her hips. "Well, yeah."
"All three of them?!" I yelped. "Botan, Yusuke, and Kuwabara?"
"What, were they not supposed to watch the full debriefing before being sent into a demonic lion's den?" Shizuru said, like the answer was obvious and I was stupid for even asking, but holy fucking shitballs there were implications here that she had no idea about and holy shit, holy shit—
"I—I just—I don't—I have to go!" I said, and I bolted from my chair and headed at a run for the front door.
I caught a glimpse of Shizuru's face, blanched and nonplussed, as I streaked past her. "Keiko, wait—my smock!" she said, and I doubled back to strip the garment over the top of my head. I all but threw it at her in my haste, dipping the faintest of bows as I backpedaled out of the kitchen,
"Thanks, Shizuru, bye!" I said, and I left her standing there in the middle of the hair-covered kitchen floor, mouth agape as I beat my swift retreat.
In Shizuru's details lay two horrifying realizations. The first, of course, was that Kuwabara hadn't bolted from the house the moment he saw Yukina. That reaction boded, and it boded nothing good—but even more distressingly was the revelation that he'd watched the video tape to the very end.
The video tape that revealed the relationship between a certain fire demon and the ice demon Kuwabara was on his way to save.
Which meant that Kuwabara—kind, helpful, blabber-mouthed Kuwabara—knew that Yukina was Hiei's long lost sister.
Kagome whistled, long and long and breathy through the phone connection. She said, "Holy shit, girlfriend."
I grimaced against my palm, elbow propped on my desk, chin pillowed on hand. "I know."
"No. I mean, holy shit. Kuwabara didn't fall in love at first sight and he knows about Hiei and Yukina—that's nuts!"
"What do I do?" I said. I'd said that a hundred times in this phone call with Kagome, made the minute I finished sprinting home from Kuwabara's house. I could think of no one else to call, and she'd listened to my babbled reveal in horrified silence—but neither of us knew quite what to say. "What do I even do?"
"Well, first thing's first: You gotta hope Kuwabara isn't so far in love with you that this can't be fixed."
My chest spasmed, refusing to take in air. "In love with me?"
"Well, yeah," Kagome said. "That's what happened, right?"
Truth be told, I wasn't sure, and I hated admitting as much. I'd seen a few signs here and there that Kuwabara like-liked me, if you'll pardon the immature phrasing. All the blushing, the attention he paid me, his protectiveness, it was hard to miss—but that was just a crush, not actual love. Yeah, that's right. It was just a crush, the kind any 14 year old boy would have on a pretty girl who paid him even the littlest bit of attention. Love was deeper than attraction. Love was different. There was no way Kuwabara loved me. And even if he did…
"I thought that the minute he saw her, any crush he'd have on me would disappear," I said. "He crushed on Keiko and Botan in the anime, but the second Yukina entered the picture, those feelings evaporated. So I guess…"
"You couldn't have known," Kagome said, trying to comfort me. "I mean, what were you supposed to do? Be rude to him? Be mean to get him to not like you?"
"Actually—actually yeah. Maybe?" I sighed and pressed my fingers against my eyelids until I saw sparks. "I've seen it before. Sometimes dudes don't take hints. Sometimes they just latch on and no amount of 'We're just friends' will dissuade them. Sometimes you have to just break a heart and walk away." Kuwabara was no Timothy, but even so, memories of the asshole who wouldn't take no for an answer wouldn't vacate my head. I threw up my hands, blinking in the sunlight streaming through my window. "Maybe I could've been aloof? Distant? But Kuwabara is just—he's my favorite character. I couldn't not be nice and supportive and whatnot. Being a dick to him would break my heart!"
Kagome tittered. "I hate to say it, but hindsight's 20/20. Maybe you should've been an ass to him instead of his friend. Sucks to say it, but…"
It did indeed suck. It sucked hard. Being rude to someone without cause was not a part of who I am, and the idea of being needlessly nasty to Kuwabara to drive him away put a foul taste in my mouth…but was that what I'd have to do when he returned from recusing Yukina? I supposed it all depended on how he reacted to her in person…
"He's a teenage boy, you're a pretty girl, and you like all the same things he does," Kagome continued. "How was he not supposed to imprint like a sweet little baby duckling onto you?"
"But that's just it," I said. "He crushed on Keiko and Botan both in the anime. Those crushes dissolved the minute he saw Yukina. He imprinted on Yukina, instead." I swallowed a lump of nerves before admitting, "And yeah, he and I are closer now than he and Keiko were in the anime, but still. If it's just a crush…"
"But he didn't imprint on Yukina," Kagome said. "If his crush on you stayed put when he saw her, maybe it's not just a crush after all."
My eyes squeezed shut. "No."
"Maybe he's straight up in love with you, no crush about it."
"No, Tigger."
"Denial is a pretty color on you, Eeyore."
"I'm not—ugh!" My free hand, once more, shot skyward in agitation. "This can't be happening. Not again!"
"Again?" Kagome asked.
The urge to brush aside the question was hard to deny. I opted for the middle ground of explanation. "I'm nice to people, OK?" I said. "I'm just…I'm nice, most of the time. And I try to be good to people and Kuwabara wouldn't be the first guy to think me treating him with basic decency means I'm interested in him romantically."
Kagome didn't say anything, merely inhaled a long, slow breath that sounded like she thought I'd made a point. And perhaps I had. Most of my girlfriends in my past life had their own version of a Timothy Story, after all. I knotted my hands in my still-damp hair with a sigh, head hanging on the end of my limp neck.
"Maybe Shizuru was wrong," I said, studying the grain of my wooden desk. "Maybe he did fall for Yukina. This isn't the anime. People don't sweat-drop and grow hearts for eyes in real life. This is a real version of Yu Yu Hakusho. Maybe his reaction was subtler, and he was embarrassed in front of Yusuke, and contained himself."
That was wishful thinking. I knew it and Kagome knew it, but Kagome was a good enough friend to let me have this last shred of hope. She was kind enough to let me think, if just for a little while, that my selfish desire to become friends with my favorite anime character hadn't ruined everything about my Yu Yu Hakusho OTP.
"Maybe," was all she said, gentle and comforting. "I think you're only going to be able to tell if you ask him, or see him and Yukina together."
I harrumphed. "Too bad there's no way I can follow them on this mission. I'll have to wait until Yukina shows up at the Dark Tournament to get that chance."
Kagome giggled. "And patience is not your strong suit."
"No. No it is not." I sighed, slumping until my forehead touched my desk. "Though in the end I should probably be even more concerned that Kuwabara knows the truth about Hiei, and not about who like-likes whom."
"Ouch. You got that right. If Kuwabara lets it slip—"
"Hiei will murder him."
Kagome then hummed a funeral march with way too much gusto to suit the situation. It made me laugh, the weight on my chest the littlest bit lighter for her efforts. I stood and stretched, walking as far away from my desk as the phone's cord would allow. Johnny Cash flipped me the bird from the back of my closet; I needed to channel his moxie, that was for sure.
"Poor Kuwabara." I sighed. "I should call Kurama, probably."
She stopped humming. "Why's that?"
"He's supposed to make a five-second appearance in this arc, way at the end. No idea how he finds out that the arc is taking place, of course, so maybe that duty falls to me."
"Maybe so." She gasped, delighted. "Or maybe Hiei borrowed Kurama's VCR to watch that tape!"
And that got me to laugh again, because it made sense, and the mental image was worth a giggle. "I should call and find out. Even if that's not what happened, maybe Kurama'll know what to do about keeping Kuwabara's mouth shut."
"Here's hoping. Need me to let you go?"
"Probably." I grimaced—and as the words came out, something behind me rattled. "Before Hiei murders you-know-who."
"Before I'll murder who, now?"
I froze at the sound of his voice, and somehow I felt Kagome do the same on the other end of the phone. Silence held like spun sugar until a horrendous shriek buzzed through the telephone line—Kagome screaming, long and high and filled with both horror and excitement. She stifled the sound at once, though, with a noise like a choking hamster.
"Oh my god!" she whispered-yelled. "Is that him?"
"…I have to go."
"Keiko, is that—?"
I hung up on her.
Slowly, inch by laborious inch, I turned.
Hiei knelt atop my desk, halfway through the window, black cloak spilling over my textbooks and pens like solid shadow. He didn't speak, staring at me with all the intent of a raptor on the hunt. I swallowed, heart pumping like an engine in my aching chest.
"Hiei," I said. "Hi."
He wasted no time on pleasantries. "You were right, Meigo," he said.
I tried to tuck hair behind my ear, but I failed. It was too short for that kind of comfort now. "What about?" I asked.
"Stick with the Detective, and I find her."
He spoke simply, words as unambiguous as a boulder, but it wasn't triumph coloring his voice—not exactly, anyway. More like anticipatory satisfaction, the way you feel at the end of a long day knowing you can crawl into bed soon. Not right now, but soon. He hopped off my desk and slouched, staring at my from under the fringe of his bangs with eyes the color of smoldering coals.
"So." I glanced at his forehead, a pointed look at the concealed Jagan. "You…?"
"Yes. I saw." His chin tucked, mouth hidden by the folds of his ratty white scarf. "They're on their way to her now."
"I'm happy for you, Hiei.
The words slipped out unbidden and unrehearsed. Hiei looked as surprised by them as I felt. His eyes screwed up, mouth lifting from its nest of scarf to scowl.
"Happy for me?" he said.
I nodded, smiling in spite of myself—because Hiei had been searching for Yukina for so long. It's why he'd come to Human World in the first place. At last he could find her, ensure her safety, satisfy that unspoken desire of his to find his family.
Even if this situation had swung out of my hands and out of my control, this part I could celebrate with impunity.
But Hiei had no use for pretty words and assurances. I just smiled instead, wide and genuine and warm. "You found her," I said, and I waved my hands at the window to shoo him away. "Now go get her. Go get your sister."
His scowl deepened; he did not move. "She's warded heavily. I can't pinpoint her location, not exactly. I will have to follow the Detective until I'm closer."
He said that like an excuse, almost, for why he wasn't climbing out my window in a blur of speedy black. I didn't let my smile falter. "So go," I said, shooing him again. "Go follow them!"
But Hiei did not move. He just stood there, mouth hiding in his scarf again, staring at me with those unreadable scarlet eyes. My shooing motions ceased, then resumed with renewed enthusiasm.
"C'mon," I urged him, hands flapping. "Hop to it. Flicker out the window, quick like a bunny."
Hiei's chin ducked lower. He mumbled something, words too low to catch. I leaned close with a frown.
"What was that?" I said.
Hiei cursed, low growl rippling through the air. "Don't make me ask, Meigo."
"Ask what?"
His growl intensified both in volume and ferocity, but it cut short when he drew in a deep breath. I recognized that breath. It was the breath I so often took, the one I drew before doing something I felt unsure of—or something that scared me. But what reason did Hiei—irascible, irritable, hot-tempered Hiei—have to be afraid of?
"Fine," he said, biting out the word. "Fine, then. I won't ask." He drew himself up to his full height, somehow managing to glare down the length of his nose despite his unimpressive height.
"Meigo—get ready," he said. "You're coming with me."
And just like that, my hands were back on the situation once again.
NOTES:
First chunk is super duper personal and I honestly hesitated to include it, but the whole "NQK is oblivious to Kuwabara's feelings" thing is, sadly, realistic considering my history, and I think it's important we share stories like that so we feel less alone.
This week and weekend were hellish and I am both emotionally and physically exhausted. Going to go collapse now. Thank you.
Many thanks to those who brightened my less than stellar week with their comments: Lady Rini, Selias, Laina Inverse, Tsuki-Lolita, DiCuore Allisa, xenocanaan, Lady Ellesmere, Marian, MetroNeko, Kaiya Azure, ahyeon, wennifer-lynn, Counting Sinful Stars, tatewaki2000, KhaleesiRenee, zubhanwc3, Nozomi Higurashi, beccalittlebear, Dec Jane, Just 2 Dream of You, rya-fire1, WaYaADisi1, Viviene001, Miss Ideophobia, Dark Rose Charm, The Story Teller Sentinel, Desaidas, guestallx27, Solemn Nonsense, SunnyStormCloud, susannamay16, Minirowan, and 4 guests. I love you guys very much.
