Warnings: None
Lucky Child
Chapter 65:
"The Great Hiei-Keiko Road Trip of 1990, Part 2"
"Yusuke. Yusuke? Yusuke!"
But Yusuke did not respond, neither to the teacher barking his name nor to the snickers of our classmates. I leaned out of my desk and aimed a kick at his shin. Yusuke jolted, eyes tearing from the classroom window with a blink.
"Oi," he said, glaring at me for interrupting his daydream. "What do you want?"
A pointed head-jerk toward the front of the class. "The teacher is asking you a question."
Yusuke adjusted the heat of his glare to the woman in question. "OK, then what do you want?"
The woman shoved her glasses up her nose, disgruntled but still willing to give Yusuke a shot at being something other than the classroom miscreant. "As I said, Yusuke: Can you tell me the difference between a meteor and an asteroid?"
"Uh…" He thought about it, nose wrinkling—and then his smile turned wicked. "A meat-eor's somethin' you put on spaghetti and an ass-teroid's a cream for your butt."
The rest of the class erupted into laughter while I admired Yusuke's surprising grasp of English puns. Meteor, meatball, and we'd all learned the English word for "ass" last week after Okubo came back from a vacation in America and taught us the curses he'd gleaned from his cousin abroad. Yusuke's jokes weren't sophisticated in a broad sense, but to a classroom of third graders, Yusuke was practically Saturday Night Live.
Our teacher was less impressed, of course. She gasped and pointed at the door. "Out in the hall, Yusuke. Now."
Seemed like Yusuke was destined to be the school delinquent—at least for another day. He carried water buckets until class ended, arms shaking and face red by the time the lunch bell rang. We grabbed food from the cafeteria (though I had to carry his plate for him, given his noodle-arms) and headed up to the roof. It was the only place Yusuke liked eating anymore, and although we weren't technically allowed up there, the teachers were willing to look the other way just to get Yusuke away from the other kids (and to let me be his chaperone for just a little while). He'd started too many food fights, and I'd stopped too many food fights, for them to force the issue of eating with our peers.
"You really gotta stop mouthing off to teachers," I said as we settled in.
"I will when they stop asking stupid questions," he grumbled. "Asteroids and meteors—feh! That's dumb. Who needs to know that?"
"Anyone who wants to be a scientist."
"So, not me."
"You'd like astronomy if you gave it a chance. It's actually quite fascinating."
"You only think that 'cause you're a big ol' nerd."
Rather than get offended, as Yusuke probably hoped I might, I just beamed at him. "That's true. Nerds rock."
Yusuke rolled his eyes and begged me to feed him his food because his arms had turned the consistency of jello after holding water buckets for hours. I indulged him to get him to shut up, spooning rice and veggies into his mouth. This was one of the few chances I'd get to make him eat vegetables, probably, and I wasn't about to pass that up.
"Regardless, Yusuke," I said when his mouth was full and he couldn't argue. "You really have to start paying attention. They'll hold you back if you don't, and then you won't be able to cheat off my tests."
Although he looked begrudgingly cowed, with a grunt he choked down his food and said, "Astronomy is just dumb, though. And didn't we learn about it already in, like, the second grade?"
"Yeah." I gave him a deadpan, unimpressed stare. "We did learn about it last year."
"So it's kiddie stuff."
"And what, being in the third grade makes us adults all of a sudden?" I used my chopsticks like a conductor's baton, punctuating every word. "And all the stuff they taught us as littler kids is the foundation upon which we build—"
"—all of our developing stores of knowledge and reasoning abilities, I know, I know," Yusuke finished, voice pitched high in mockery. "You never stop saying that! And you sound like a dumb grown-up when you say it, too." He opened his mouth as wide as it could go, cavernous and hungry. "Now gimme one of those fried shrimp, would ya?"
I fed us both in silence for a bit, alternating bites between Yusuke and myself. I'd only known Yusuke for a year or two at that point, and while we were close (I was his only friend; of course we were close) I still hadn't quite learned what made him tick yet. True to the anime, the kid was hard to predict. Things that made him happy one day pissed him off the next. I dreaded the day puberty would hit and make him even more of a—
"So."
I shook myself from my reverie and found Yusuke staring off to the side, eyes downcast and hooded. They flickered to me and away again—wait, was he nervous? That wasn't like Yusuke at all. Popping a bit of rice into my mouth, I hummed an inquiry.
Yusuke fidgeted. For a minute he said nothing. He just watched me chew, looking at me and away again in turns. Like steam building in a kettle the words bubbled in his mouth, swelling his chest up and up until he couldn't keep them in even a moment longer.
"So… what is the difference between a meteor and an asteroid?" he blurted.
I blinked, dumbfounded. "You mean you don't know?"
Yusuke hesitated. "Well—"
"You can remember that we learned about it last year, in the second grade, but you can't remember what you actually learned?" My hands flew, rice flinging off a chopstick to the floor. "You even have my "foundation of knowledge" speech memorized, but you can't be bothered to remember about meteors? Yusuke, c'mon. You're smarter than that! This is easy stuff and you just—"
He stood up almost too fast for me to follow, reflexes impressive even at age eight. Hands jammed deep into the pockets of his shorts as he stalked off, head dropping on the end of his hanging neck. "You know what? Forget it," he said. "Forget I even asked."
I shot to my feet, too. "Yusuke, wait!"
"Nah, Keiko." The grin he threw over his shoulder looked as acidic as it did sad. "I'm just dumb, right? Write me off like everyone else—"
My hand closed around his wrist. Yusuke stopped walking, one hand reaching for the roof's access door. He didn't look at me, though, eyes locked forward… but his throat moved when he swallowed, and the careful way he kept from looking at me made me wonder what kind of emotion this little boy was hiding.
Because that's what Yusuke was, in the third grade. He was a little boy, still sensitive and untested, a far cry from the thick-skinned delinquent he'd one day become. Some days, like that day, I tended to forget that all-important fact.
"Yusuke." My hand tightened on his wrist. "Yusuke, I'm sorry."
That got his attention. Wet eyes set in a stunned face turned my way. "Huh?"
"I'm sorry," I repeated. "I shouldn't have talked down to you." I released him and bowed, letting formality speak for me. "It was wrong, and I'm sorry."
Yusuke stared at me in wonder when I straightened up. "You—you mean it?"
"I always mean what I say."
He hesitated—but then he dragged a finger beneath his nose with a sniff, and his welling eyes dried up.
"Yeah," he said, a smile finally breaking through. "Yeah. You always do."
That got me to smile, too. I grabbed his arm and tugged him back to our spot, pushing him to sitting with a hand on his shoulder. "Sit." And then I shoved another fried shrimp into his mouth. "Eat that and listen."
Content now that he had more food, Yusuke munched on his shrimp with a series of satisfied crunches and smacks. I got a book from my school bag and opened it across my knees, scooting to sit next to him. We were the same height at that age, heads knocking like coconuts when I leaned too close.
"Now," I said as I flipped the pages. "An asteroid and a meteor are both bodies of matter floating in space, but where they differ is in how they interact with the earth's atmosphere."
His nose wrinkled. "The earth's what?"
"Oh." I turned to a different section. "We'll start there. The atmosphere—"
That day on the roof I made a solemn promise to myself—but more importantly, I made a solemn promise to Yusuke. Never again would I shame him for not knowing something, let alone for asking questions to remedy that lack of knowledge. After all, it wasn't like I'd been born knowing what asteroids and meteors—wait, never mind, bad comparison. In my first life I hadn't been born knowing the difference between meteors and asteroids. Someone had had to teach me the difference just the way I had to teach Yusuke. Sometimes I forgot Yusuke was still just a kid, and like all kids, he didn't know much yet… and that was totally OK, even if Yusuke's lack of knowledge came from willfully ignoring his teachers.
Turns out, that's exactly what Yusuke needed. Over the years he'd come to me with all kinds of questions, obvious and obscure alike—and I hoped he came to me because he sensed that I'd made the promise never to talk down to him, even if I'd never said those words aloud.
Hiei and I walked until a cold mountain stream wound across our path. Easy enough to ford, shallow as it bubbled over rocks and fallen leaves, but as darkness fell around us I paused. Hiei stopped on the pebbled bank and cast one baleful scarlet eye my way. Wind rippled the trees at the edge of the stream, leaves and water moving in unexpected tandem.
"This is a good place to camp," I said. Nearby birds quieted when I spoke, silence eerie in their wake. "That OK with you?"
Hiei harrumphed, and the birds began to sing their end-of-day opera again.
Hiei didn't move while I pitched a tent, unrolled sleeping bags, and organized the food and cookware in my rucksack. He stood on the edge of the stream and stared off into the woods, instead, breeze tossing the edge of his cloak and the tips of his blue-black hair. Last shreds of sunlight streaked the darkening sky rose and peach, stars beginning to peer from between those glowing strands. I cleared a spot on the ground and ringed it with stones, calling out to him as I brushed off my dirty fingers. "Will you get some firewood?"
He eyed me askance. "Why?"
"So we can build a fire upon which I can cook us dinner," I said, enunciating every word with prim precision.
Hiei scoffed. "I can make fire, you know."
"Sure, but do you really want to play the role of Keiko's Personal Easybake Oven the entire night?" I said, brow arched, and Hiei blanched. "Plus, it'll get cold later. I'll need the heat."
"… fine."
He left, soundless as the footfalls of a panther, only to reappear again laden with an armful of sticks and branches. This he set next to me before flitting away again, reappearing twice and then a third time with more fallen wood. I started to tell him that was enough, far more than we could possibly use in one night, but he shot me a glare and vanished yet again. The pile of fire wood rose to my thigh by the time he was satisfied, and without preamble he arranged the sticks into a teepee shape inside my ring of stones. He even set the teepee on fire for me, grasping one of the base logs and setting it aflame with nothing more than the contact of his bare and burning palm. Uncharacteristically helpful of him, to be honest—and that gave me a theory. A theory, and an idea.
"Hey, Hiei?" I said. I brandished the tin cookpot I'd packed. "Would you fill this with water for me?"
He scowled. "Why?"
"It's for dinner."
I held out the pot. Hiei stared at it. Then, with a dramatic sigh of annoyance, he grabbed the pot and stalked toward the nearby stream. I watched with brow knit, lips pursed in concentration. Either Hiei had been well and truly shamed by my "disappointed" comment, or he'd turned over a new and very helpful leaf sometime in the past hour. Not sure which, though. We'd certainly passed a lot of leaves on our walk here, that was for sure.
Hiei stalked back with the pot full of cold water in tow. I took it and set it next to the fire, close enough for it to heat atop one of the rocks ringing the crackling blaze.
"What are you doing?" Hiei said.
"Boiling the water."
He rolled his eyes, leaned down, and touched the outside of the pot. Within moments the metal heated to a red glow, water within bubbling and frothing in a burst of scalding steam.
Wow. So despite the eye-rolls and hemming and hawing and deep sighs, it seemed Hiei was being helpful, after all.
He still hadn't earned the right to his treat, though.
His sudden rash of helpfulness had its limits, I soon learned. He didn't help me make dinner, but then again, I'm not sure he knew quite how to help as I tore open packets of meats and vegetables and stocks to make us an easy, hearty stew. He certainly watched with intense scarlet eyes, monitoring my hands as I chopped and stirred and peeled and diced. Once he started to say something when I picked up my paring knife to julienne a carrot, but as I sliced the root vegetable with practiced eased, the words died on his tongue.
Not for the first time that day, I wondered what he might be thinking, and whether or not he'd learned anything during our adventure today.
Night well and truly fell while I cooked, last shreds of sun dispersing into the veil of the velvet sky. We sat a little ways back from the stream atop the pebbled beach beneath the trees, stars shining like winking fireflies through the canopy overhead. Hiei ate his half of the stew in silence, staring into the bonfire (it was a bit too large to be just a campfire thanks to Hiei's zealousness) without blinking. I ate in equal quiet, lost to my own thoughts.
You served your purpose well enough.
My fingers tightened around my tin spoon.
Bait. He'd brought me along to be bait.
A spark of hot annoyance lit in my chest, a complement to the sparks rising from the bonfire. My show of disappointment had been real enough, but I hadn't admitted to being angry even when Hiei called me out for it. Didn't want to give him the satisfaction of being right. That same part of me didn't want to give him the satisfaction of my continued company, either, and debated turning around and going home. How many more times did he plan to use me for bait? How long would it take me to find civilization and somehow get home from here, anyway?
A spoon clattered against a bowl. I looked up in time to see Hiei look away, eyes pulling back to the fire and away from me.
If he'd only brought me along to act as bait, why had he been trying to help set up camp? Why had my comment about disappointment affected him, even in such a small way?
Soon we finished our meal. I hunted through the wood pile for two long, skinny sticks, still springy and not quite dry. My paring knife cut through their bark with ease, whittling down the tips to sharp, thin points.
"So. Logistics," I said, not deigning to look at Hiei. "What time do we leave in the morning?"
"We leave when they do," he said.
By 'they' he meant Yusuke and the others, I was certain. "Are we following them?" I asked. Under my breath I added, "Not sure why we're not just going to the mansion already, to be honest."
Annoyance sharpened his words. "It's warded. I can't sense her, or the mansion itself, well enough to find it on my own. And these woods are crawling with demons." At that he loosed a chuckle, low and conniving. "I'll let the Detective clear them out for me."
I chanced a look at him. He sat a few feet away by the fire with back against a particularly large rock, uncaring of the pebbles that must be digging into his thighs (I sat on a log; more comfy, for sure). Despite the smirk on his lips, his eyes refused to settle, flicking from the fire to the trees to the stream and back again. It wasn't like Hiei to hold back from a fight, nor to let another fight on his behalf. Had he had a different plan before I balked at being bait? Was this 'leave it to Yusuke' scheme a reaction to what I'd said?
I doubt he'd tell me even if I asked. So I didn't.
"I see." My knife hissed across the wood, curls of bark falling to my feet. "Wake me up in the morning, I guess, whenever it's time. But try to give me time to pack up my stuff. Oh, and time to cook breakfast, too."
He shifted, mouth and chin dipping into the fabric of his ratty scarf. "Whatever."
Hiei slouched, hands in his pockets, eyes darting to the darkness pressing against the tremulous firelight. Moths had gathered, fluttering around the flames and even into them, turning to ash in the space between breaths. Call me self-centered, but I got the sense Hiei wasn't looking at me on purpose. When my feet shifted on the pebbled ground, he shifted, too, reacting to my presence on instinct… like the way he'd reacted to my need to boil water. I hadn't even had to ask for that. He'd just done it, because it needed to be done.
My heart softened in spite of myself, and I wondered if this was how moms felt when their kids were naughty and pouted from their seat in time-out.
"Hey," I said. "You still hungry?"
Hiei allowed himself to look at me, eyes at once cast in my direction.
"I packed a treat for us," I said.
Hiei frowned, suspicion obvious. "What kind of treat?"
"A camping favorite. Here." I handed him the sticks I'd been whittling. "Hold the ends of those in the fire to sterilize them."
Hiei scoffed and pinched the tip of one stick between forefinger and thumb, dragging the pads of said fingers up the length of the twig. The wood sizzled in the wake of his hand, singeing at once under his touch. I rolled my eyes and called him a show-off, rummaging through my bag until I found the packets of goodies hidden at the bottom. Hiei eyed the material I laid out on a large, flat rock, giving special attention (special wary attention, specifically) to the plastic bag I wrenched open with my hands.
"What are those?" he said.
"Marshmallows." I pulled one fluffy while candy from the bag and squished it between my fingers, grinning. "Here, hold out a stick."
Reluctantly, Hiei did. I put marshmallows on the ends of both skewers and took one from him, holding mine not too close but not too far away from the flames. Soon one side toasted, lightly browned above what was sure to be a perfectly gooey interior. I flipped the marshmallow around to the other side to give it the same treatment.
"See what I'm doing here?" I said. "Hold the marshmallow over the fire until it gets nice and toasty and melty." When he didn't partake, I smiled to encourage him. "Well, go on."
Hiei didn't move—and without warning he plunged the marshmallow right into the heart of the fire, where it ignited in a bright blue flash.
"You're not supposed to light it up!" I warbled. Hiei yanked the marshmallow from the fire and held it up, watching through narrowed eyes as it burned like a small torch. "You're supposed to make it golden toasty brown, like this!"
With one hand I grabbed his stick and blew out his flaming marshmallow; with the other hand I brandished my perfect marshmallow, golden and just barely bubbly at the top. Hiei looked between mine and his and scowled, tossing his hair with a sneer.
"Mine looks better," he said of his burned mess.
"How would you know?" I countered. "You've never even had a toasted marshmallow before."
Before Hiei could try and poke holes in my logic (not that there were any to be had, unless he got really tricky somehow), I handed the sticks over to him and grabbed a packet of graham crackers and a chocolate bar. Taking two crackers and half a chocolate bar, I sandwiched my good marshmallow between them and pulled it off the skewer. Hiei stared at the confection with undisguised skepticism as I held it out his way, strings of melted marshmallow trailing off the crackers like spider silk.
"Here. You can eat mine." Pointing at each part of the treat, I explained. "It's a graham cracker, some chocolate, and a marshmallow, and it's called a s'more."
Hiei frowned. "A su-a-mo-ru?" he said, slippery English word proving troublesome.
"S'more," I repeated. "In English when you want more food, you want 'some more.' S'more, 'some more,' s'more. Get it?" I thrust the s'more into his hands. "Now eat that before it gets cold."
Hiei didn't immediately obey—but I didn't mind. He rarely dug right into foods when he wasn't familiar with them. He took his time sniffing the s'more, examining its components, before taking an experimental nibble first of the cookies, then of the chocolate, and lastly of the marshmallow. Just as I started to nag him to eat it before the marshmallow cooled and got gummy, he took a bite off the corner of the treat—only to pause and hold it in his mouth like a cat not sure of its new food. Soon, though, his jaw moved, chewing once, twice, three times in quick succession.
And then he took a huge bite, shoving half of the thing in his mouth at once, marshmallow squishing and leaking out the sides of the mangled s'more in a volcanic burst. He crammed the remaining chunks into his mouth with a muffled grunt of annoyance, glaring at the melted chocolate, sticky marshmallow, and dusting of crumbs decorating his now-empty fingers.
"Good, huh?" I said, mouth twitching with a suppressed smile.
Hiei swallowed. He turned up his nose. "It's… edible."
How very like him, that comment felt. "From you, that's high praise indeed," I said, rolling my eyes. I picked up the remaining skewer and stripped the burned skin off Hiei's ruined marshmallow, tipping my head back so I could drop the char onto my tongue. Hiei watched with a glare.
"I thought you said they should be golden toasty," he said, accusing.
"Yeah, well, the char isn't always awful." I held out the empty stick. "You want s'more?"
Hiei snatched the stick from me with a glare. He'd had enough explanation to recognize the pun when I said it, especially given how my eyebrows waggled with the sadism one feels when making a truly terrible pun. "Make that infernal joke again and I'll shove this stick through you eyeball, roast it instead." He commandeered crackers and chocolate for himself. "I'm making my own, this time."
"Suit yourself," I said, "though you should still listen to my advice. I'll have you know I'm the best marshmallow-roaster in the—"
Hiei shot me a Look and lit his marshmallow on fire. "Don't tell me what to do, Meigo."
I held up my hands. "Fine. Burn your s'more; see if I care."
Satisfied, he bit into his s'more—only for his face to go blank, jaw working more slowly than before. He ate the damn thing, all right, making a brave face all the while, but he made his next marshmallow golden toasty instead of burnt and crusty, just like I'd instructed.
We ate the rest of the s'mores in silence, tension easing as Hiei absolutely crushed the graham crackers and chocolate. Despite his lukewarm words, s'mores definitely seemed to agree with him… and maybe a little too well. When we finished eating, chocolate wrappers and crinkling plastic empty, Hiei sat back against his chosen rock and scowled, once again staring into the fire with hooded scarlet eyes. I settled in, too, content to rest after a long day and listen to the sounds of nighttime and exiting summer. A nightingale sang in a distant tree, tinny noise undercut but the hollow hooting on an owl. My eyes fluttered, heavy as the soothing sounds of the babbling stream and gentle wind lulled me into relaxation.
Hiei ruined it, standing with a clatter of pebbles and the rustle of flapping cloak. He stalked off toward the edge of the forest and stopped, pacing back toward the fire and then away once more.
I watched him pace for a while—because that's what he was doing, now that he didn't have food to occupy his hands and head. Pacing back and forth like a tiger in a cage, footsteps steady but vibrating with unspent, restless energy. He didn't pay me any mind. Once he growled, wordless and agitated, but he said nothing as he patrolled the edges of the fire's glow, guarding the border where darkness met light as if to keep the night at bay.
"Say, Hiei?"
He stopped short. "What?"
"Are you nervous?"
He rounded on me, nonplussed. "Am I what?"
"Nervous." When he didn't react, I supplied the obvious and unspoken. "About Yukina, and meeting her."
Hiei wheeled, putting his back to me with a low 'tch' of dismissal. "Stupid," he said. "That's a stupid question."
"Not really. I'd be nervous, in your shoes." It occurred to me we hadn't talked about one thing yet, and it was a thing worth talking about indeed. "Oh. By the way: I know you're not going to tell her who you are."
And he was facing me again, every last one of his sharp teeth on full and intimidating display. "You breathe a single word, and I will—"
"I won't tell her." A shrug. "I think it's stupid not to tell her, but I know you promised the demon who gave you your eye that you'd stay quiet. And I respect that."
Whatever he'd been expecting, that wasn't it. Hiei pulled back, uncertain. "You know about that?"
"I know the past as well as the future." Better keep it cryptic, even if I thought Hiei needed a little push in the right direction. "All I will say for certain is that your sister wants to find you as much as you want to find her."
But he didn't look surprised to hear this. "I know that," Hiei said. "It's why she left the ice village. To find her long lost brother." His lips curled, teeth showing once again. "I'm the reason she's trapped here with that human pig."
There was something in the way he said that—a viciousness, perhaps, but not aimed outward, even if he had insulted Tarukane. No, this was a simmering rage, directed inward and contained behind walls of thin restraint, magma housed in a fragile teakettle. Somehow it hadn't occurred to me to think Hiei might blame himself for his sister's capture in Human World, but it certainly occurred to me as I watched Hiei resume his frenetic pacing. I'd always assumed he wouldn't tell Yukina about their kinship because he feared rejection, after being rejected by the ice maidens as a baby, and because he did not think his violent past worthy of present acceptance—but guilt at his sister's capture itself added a new wrinkle to my perception of his emotional tapestry, a wrinkle much more immediate than his infant rejection or worry about his bloody past.
Not that Hiei would ever admit to any of that aloud. Hiei was as complicated as he was private in that regard.
For a time I let him stew, wondering if I even had the right to offer commentary, let alone comfort. I busied myself with cleaning our dishes and tidying the campsite, conscious of his presence like a pulsing, aching tooth. Only once I sat back down next to the fire did I take a deep breath, center myself, and speak.
"You know… not in this life, nor in any other, have I had siblings," I said. "I'm an only child all the way down."
Hiei stopped walking, standing on the opposite side of the fire. Light licked at his hair and face, golden shadows setting hollows in his cheeks and bags beneath his curious eyes.
"I met Yusuke when I was just a kid," I continued. "At first I hung around him because I wanted to look out for him. He was always getting into things." A wry smile tugged at my mouth. "Probably would've died long before that car wreck had I not been around to keep his ass in line."
His voice crackled like a smoldering branch. "What's your point?"
"My point is that somewhere along the way, I realized something." My smile held only warmth, then. "I realized that Yusuke is my brother."
Hiei's eyes widened a fraction, or perhaps the flicker and spark of the fire merely created that illusion. Still, I pressed on.
"We're not related," I said. "We don't share blood, but he is my family. He's the closest thing I will ever have to a brother, and if he ever got hurt..."
I let my words trailing into the air like sparks into the velvet sky, ephemeral but bright. Hiei watched my face, unmoving, even as the campfire made the edges of his body flicker like a waning ghost.
"Why are you telling this?" he said.
Another deep breath, full of smoke and purpose. "You don't have to tell Yukina who you are—but that doesn't mean you can't still be her brother." I held up a hand when Hiei's eyes narrowed. "You can be there for her. You can be a person she trusts. You can be her friend—and if that friendship is deep enough, it turns into family." Another smile, freely offered, freely given. "Family isn't dependent on blood. In fact, I think our most precious family members are those whom we choose to be our family."
Hiei scoffed. "Sentimental drivel."
I shrugged. "Maybe. Probably, even. But it's sentimental drivel I stand by."
"It's preposterous." Hiei's teeth bared, gleaming like they'd been dipped in molten metal. Every word he spoke rang with utter contempt. "Be her brother without being her brother—you're mad."
Another shrug. "Maybe so."
"Definitely so, Meigo," he said, a predator catching the scent of blood. Through the field of the flames I saw his fists clench, saw the tension turn his shoulders to stone. "I'm no one's brother. I'm a felon. I was raised by bandits, nursed on blood and murder instead of milk. I've killed more people than I've spoken to. That girl who shared a womb with me is my sister, yes, but even she would balk if she knew what I'd done." His words rose from a growl to a bark, almost a yell, but not yet quite. "She would hate me!" Hiei said, and his hand lashed out as if to strike an invisible foe.
I didn't budge at the aggressive display. I knew what self-loathing it had to hide. "You're really so sure no one could ever care about you?" I murmured.
Shutters closed behind Hiei's eyes. "Forget it," he said, and he put his back to me.
I sat up, ready to go after him if he pulled a disappearing act. "Hiei, wait a second—"
He shook his head. "I should have known you'd overthink it."
"Hiei, you can talk about—"
"I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT, MEIGO!"
The bellow of my name rang through the encampment, echoing off the trees like the knell of a broken bell, and somewhere in the darkness came the shriek of startled birds. Branches rustled and leaves fell as they took frightened flight, sleep disturbed beyond salvage. Hiei rounded on me once again, striding so close to the fire I feared it would set his cloak aflame.
"I'm not you, Meigo." Scarlet glared like the eyes of the animal through the fire. "I don't need to express my feelings like some pathetic, weakling human who can't even handle the stress of her own emotions—like some pathetic child who refuses to eat when she can't stand to look at herself in the mirror." He drew himself up as I gasped, pulse quickening at that pointed barb. "I am stronger than that. I am stronger than you—and I am fine. I'm fine alone. Don't think you can change that." His head shook. "Don't think you can change me."
My swallowed, throat like sandpaper. "I don't think I can change you."
"Good," he spat.
"And I'd never try to change you, even if I felt I could." My next words came slow and with difficulty, forced out even as my pride stung and my feelings withered. "You don't need to change, Hiei."
"Feh!" He tossed his head and glared. "You wouldn't say that if you knew."
It was almost like a challenge, the way he said that—a challenge to contradict him, so he could call me ignorant or stupid. It wasn't a challenge I wanted to take just then. Instead, I wanted to be mad. Deep down, I probably was. Deep down I felt my emotions smart, rattled after he'd called me weak and thrown my eating disorder in my face, hurt beyond measure that he'd attack me in that way.
But—such was the way of the wounded. To lash out, to attack, when one feels vulnerable. Like a wolf in a trap Hiei bit and scratched at anyone who came to close, driving them away so he could lick his wounds in private.
You couldn't be hurt by others, if you were alone.
But you couldn't be comforted by them, either, if you always pushed them away.
Hiei didn't expect me to stand up and walk around the fire, nor to walk right past him without saying a word. He watched me with wary eyes as I strode to the stream and knelt to bathe my face and hands in its cool water. I needed to compose myself. I didn't know Hiei's true age (and I reminded myself to ask Kurama about that) but something told me that in this situation, I had to be the adult. And if I had to be the adult, there was only one adult I could emulate who could possibly make this any better.
He'd certainly made my life better, at a time when (if I were a betting woman) I bet I'd felt a lot like Hiei.
"You know, Hiei." I didn't look at him, kneeling on the pebbled beach with hands atop my folded legs. "Growing up, there was this man—his name was Mister Rogers. And he ran a human TV show that I adored."
Hiei shifted, feet crunching over scattered stones. "What are you babbling about?"
"Mister Rogers was like a second father to a lot of kids, including me." I needed to get this out before I lost my nerve, paying Hiei's snark no heed. "He was a hopeful person. He never judged, and he took children seriously. He gave us permission to feel, to express—and most importantly, to love ourselves, even if we didn't like ourselves too much."
Hiei didn't speak. Still facing the stream, I stood. My voice carried into the darkness, small and soft and lost within the nighttime gloom.
"Every time his show would end," I said, "he'd look right at the camera and speak to the kids watching. It was the best part of the show. He'd look right at the camera, and he'd smile, and he'd say, 'I like you just the way you are.'"
A lump gathered in my throat, the way it always did when I thought of Mister Rogers—because cheesy as it sounded, he'd brought me immeasurable comfort as a kid. Without him I wasn't certain I would have survived. Frankly, it was a wonder Hiei had survived, alone as he'd been as a child. He'd had no one to say the simple, but necessary, things Mister Rogers had said to me.
You know… Hiei and I were alike, in that way. Neither of us had had loving parents, even if mine had been present in my life. But whereas he'd been alone entirely, I'd found other adults to give me validation. Mister Rogers, my grandmothers, the friends of my parents whom I'd adopted for my own—they'd given me what the conventional adults in my life could not.
Hiei didn't have a Mister Rogers in his life. But come high water or hell, I'd try to fix that tonight if I could swing it.
Be the Mister Rogers you wish to see in the world, I suppose.
Hiei didn't move when I turned around to face him. He didn't budge when I smiled, nor when I walked in his direction with the crunch of shoe on stone. I stood only a foot away on the bank of that tiny stream and smiled, smoke curling around us like the hands of a worried mother, hoping he wouldn't run before I said what I needed to say—and what I thought he needed to hear.
"Mister Rogers made me feel like it was OK to be me, even on days when I refused to eat and couldn't bear to look at myself in the mirror." I shrugged, helpless. "And call me immature if you want, but there were days as an adult when I'd watch that TV show for children, just because it made being me a little easier."
Hiei searched my face, shutters drawn behind his eyes. "Why are you telling me this?"
I shrugged again. "You want to push me away, maybe. I won't pretend to know for sure. And maybe I'm totally off base, but I think it might do you some good to hear what I heard from Mister Rogers, back when I needed it most." I caught his gaze with mine and held it, frank and unflinching. "Hiei, you should know—I like you just the way you are."
His eyes did widen, then, no trick of the firelight or illusion cast by evening's shadow. The tension in his shoulders shifted and changed, too, surprise and shock taking the place of anger and resentment. I had no way of knowing what Hiei thought of what I'd said, but he didn't run, or rebuke me, or call me stupid. He just stared. I just stared. We stared at one another until my eyes dried out; my lashes fluttered, and in the tiniest of increments I lifted my hand.
To my immense surprise, Hiei did not flee into the dark when I placed it on his shoulder.
"I like you just the way you are," I repeated, "and brother or no brother, I think Yukina would, too."
The moment held, spinning into infinity like a shout flung into space. Hiei didn't drop my gaze for what felt like forever—but it was a forever that ended far too soon. He shifted, shoulder sliding out from under my fingers like water beneath a hull. I didn't fight him. I let him go, and my hand fell to my side.
"Drop it, Meigo," Hiei said—but quietly. So quietly I almost didn't hear him under the crackle of the bonfire.
"Dropping it." I stepped around him, heading for the tent. "I'm gonna go to bed, OK?"
Hiei didn't reply, and I didn't force the issue. He said nothing as I entered the tent, undressed, and slid into my sleeping bag, where I lay in the dark until sleep finally claimed me.
My watch's blue glow informed me it was just past 2 AM. Time for sleeping, said my brain, but time for a trip outside, protested my bladder. Weary and bleary and all manner of fatigued, I unrolled from my sleeping bag like tuna from loose maki, grabbed a flashlight, and stumbled from the tent. Arms tight around myself (I had been right; it had gotten very, very cold once night fell over the mountains) I shoved my socked feet into my hiking boots and wondered where the best place to pee in the dark might be.
"Meigo?"
I flinched and turned in place, looking for him, but I saw no one. "Hiei?" I said, squinting into the darkness. The fire had dimmed, coals bright red and smoldering beneath ashen logs. "Where are you?"
"Up here."
I followed the sound of his voice as much I did his description, turning back toward the tent and looking skyward. There, suspended above a branch about ten feet off the ground, two eyes reflected like a coyote's in the dark, glowing as if lit from within by flame. I could make out nothing of his body in the shadows—just those eyes, fixed and intent on me.
"You're sleeping in a tree," I said. My eyes rolled. "Of course you're sleeping in a tree. Why am I even surprised?"
Hiei ignored my ramblings. "Where are you going?"
I brandished the flashlight, pointing at the roll of toilet paper sitting atop my backpack (I'd left it out as a courtesy to Hiei, though lord knows what his bathroom habits might be). "Bathroom," I said.
That was enough detail or him, thanks. He grunted, not moving from his lofty perch as I flicked on the flashlight and picked my way over fallen branches and tumbled boulders into the woods. I turned the light off and peed in the dark just in case anyone (or anything) wanted to be a perv, and when I finished I headed back to the stream to wash my hands. The cold water numbed them to the bone and chased away the weariness pulling at my eyelids—which kind of sucked because I wanted to go back to bed, dang it. Instead I stoked the fire, added a new log, and stood there warming my hands. Cold mountain wind twined into my hair, turning my scalp to gooseflesh.
"You know," I said, shooting a look at the branch where Hiei had been (and where I hoped he still was, though I couldn't tell in the dark), "that cannot be good for your back."
His eyes opened, sparks of maraschino in the night. So he hadn't moved. Good.
"Don't you want my other sleeping bag?" I said.
"No," Hiei said. He scoffed. "Weakling human contraption…"
I snorted, recalling a very old fanfiction trope. "I bet you'd prefer a pile of pelts in a nice cave somewhere, then."
Somehow his eyes managed to look contemptuous, even though I couldn't see his expression. "What are you blithering about?" he said. "A tree is sufficient. It gives me the high ground."
"Sure." How very like him, to choose a sleeping spot for tactical reasons. "But when you're an old man with back problems, don't come crying to me."
He laughed, a sharp bark of acidic humor. "As if. You'll be long dead by the time I'm old."
"That just means I'll have to come back as a ghost to pester you to sleep properly and eat your veggies," I replied with a cloyingly sweet smile.
Hiei glowered. "You would be that annoying."
"What can I say? Smothering you is part of my charm."
He didn't say anything, not confirming but not denying it, either. Maybe he'd brought me along to be more than just bait, after all. I hummed a tune under my breath and turned, warming my back at the fire instead of my hands. Sparks drifted up and over my shoulder; I traced their flight into the sky, watching their path to the stars peeking through the branches overhead. At that I let out a low, impressed whistle, an idea flaring like a firework in my head.
"Say, Hiei?" I said.
A grumble of annoyance. "What, Meigo?"
"What're the chances of rain tonight?"
A pause. Then, sarcasm resplendent: "Are there clouds?"
"Well. No?"
"Then there's your answer, dolt."
I ignored the barb, because this was Hiei, and if I got offended by every one of his insults… well, that just sounded tiring. I grabbed my sleeping bag and lugged it out of the tent, walking along the bank of the stream until I found a spot not too obscured by overhanging trees, just outside the glow of the campfire. The lumpy ground wasn't the most pleasant surface to lie upon, sure, but I dug my butt and shoulders into the pebbled shore until the earth conformed to my body—and then it wasn't so bad, after all. I cuddled into my sleeping bag with a sigh, fingers laced together under my head for a pillow.
Hiei appeared in short order, looming over me with a scowl. "What in the three worlds are you doing?" he said, face oddly comical when viewed upside down.
I patted the ground at my side. "Have a seat."
Hiei balked—but he dropped to the ground, still scowling, hands braced on his crossed legs. Stone crunched beneath him, loud in the night's stillness.
"Now lie back, like me."
More balking, more scoffing, but he did as I asked, lying next to me with more complaints and rebukes than I can conceivably recall, let along write down accurately. He didn't take his eyes off me, lying as rigid as a corpse at my side, eyes locked confused and indignant on my face.
I suppressed a giggle. "Stop looking at me." And I pointed. "Look up."
Slowly, moving in the tiniest of increments, he turned his face away. His eyes followed soon after, sliding from my features like molasses—but soon he looked at the sky, just as I wanted him to.
"You don't see stars like this in the city, that's for sure," I said.
Above us sprawled the firmament, deep and endless, studded with innumerable points of brilliant light. The ash of the Milky Way cut through the blue-black expanse in a gentle, glowing ripple—an echo, almost, of the white streaks in Hiei's midnight hair. Out here in the mountains some of the stars even gleamed with bits of color, far-flung galaxies and nebulas showing hints of pink and green and blue and gold and lavender away from the diluting lights of the city. You only saw the color of the stars in places like this—in wild places, untamed and unspoiled, nature in competition with nothing but its own glory.
A sigh slipped from my mouth. "Aren't they pretty?"
"… they're decent."
I couldn't help but roll my eyes at Hiei's understatement. "Decent, he says," I grumbled—but then I grabbed Hiei's arm with a gasp, pointing with my other hand. A brilliant point of light streaked across the sky, a trail of white neon marking its descent. "Oh, oh, meteor, make a wish!"
"A wish?" he said as the meteor faded from view.
"Yeah, a wish." I shut my eyes, made the unspoken wish I always made on shooting stars, and opened them again. "OK, I made mine. You make one, too."
"Human nonsense." He crossed his arms over his chest with a pointed 'harrumph.' "I will not partake."
"Oh, c'mon, Hiei." Twisting onto my side, I propped my head on my hand and frowned at him. "What's wrong with making a wish on a shooting star?"
"You already took the wish for that—for that meteor, or whatever it's called," he said, as if I were stupid for not realizing it. "We can't wish on the same thing. That doesn't make sense."
My brow arched. "Such strong opinions about human nonsense. One would almost suspect you care."
His glare cut like a meteor through a dark sky. "Meigo, I will end you."
"No, you won't." I flopped onto my back with a smug smile, hands laced atop my belly. "You like me too much to kill me."
"Lies."
"Truths."
"Lies, dammit."
I laughed because there was no fire of truth in his voice, and I grabbed his arm again when another light shot by. "Oh, there's another! Get it, get it! Make a wish, Hiei!"
Hiei muttered something under his breath, the word 'stupid' intelligible amid the garbled rest, but he shut his eyes for a moment anyway. He said nothing when he opened them again, brilliant red flickering over the stars as if searching for another meteor upon which to pin unspoken hopes. Only that's way too cheesy for Hiei, huh?
"What'd you wish for?" I asked.
Bluntly: "Not telling you."
"Good call," I said. "Wishes don't come true if you share them."
Hiei nodded—and then he did an impressive double take, rising up on an elbow to stare at me. "If that's the case, why did you even ask to know?"
"Because I'm nosey." Before he could agree, I gestured at the stars. "You know, I used to do this with my grandparents. We'd come out on clear nights and lay out a blanket and look at the stars. It was my favorite part of visiting them."
Gradually, Hiei lowered himself to the ground again.
"Grandmother would always bring a thermos of something to drink," I continued, "and when I fell asleep, Grandfather would carry me inside and put me into bed. It was like magic." A smile crested across my features, as undeniable as an ocean tide. "I'd fall asleep to fairy dust and wake up somewhere else, warm and cozy and safe."
Hiei harrumphed, but he didn't mock me for being sentimental or flowery like I expected. My smile grew, warm and content.
"Grandfather taught me the names of the constellations. Let's see." Mapping the stars, I hunted for familiar shapes, tracing them with a finger when they revealed themselves. "There's Cygnus, the swan. And the Big Dipper. Oh, and that's the Little Dipper. You can see the North Star at the tip of the handle." I scooted closer to Hiei so he could look down the length of my arm, see just exactly which stars I was talking about. "See those, there? They make parts of Major and Minor Ursa, the bears." When Hiei nodded, understanding, I scooted away again. "I'm rusty, though. Those are all I can pick out."
"What are constellations?"
Hiei turned his head my way, searching my face, brow furrowed as he waited for a response. For a second I didn't reply—mostly due to shock. Hiei could work a record player, but he didn't know what a constellation was? How was that possible?
Not that it mattered. Hiei had asked a question, and I needed to answer it.
"Constellations are basically pictures you see in the stars." Sitting up, I swiped a handful of pebbles off the ground and arranged them on the foot of my sleeping bag, tracing lines between the stones with a finger. "The stars connect together to form an image, though the images are pretty abstract. Humans named the stars thousands of years ago. They made up the constellations, too."
The furrows in his brow deepened. "Why name the stars at all?"
"Good question." I thought about it for a minute. "The stars move through the sky in a fixed pattern. Depending on the time of year, other constellations become visible. Based on their movements, human astronomers could navigate, determine the time of year, the size of the earth, all sorts of things. So the constellations are basically part of humanity's pursuit of understanding how the world works." I scratched the back of my neck, eyeing the tail of the Little Dipper. "Some myths and legends tie into the constellations, too."
Hiei processed this explanation, patchwork and shallow though it was, without comment. Eventually he looked away and up to the sky again. I joined him, lying back down to watch for more shooting stars.
"We don't have stars in Demon World."
He spoke so quietly I nearly missed it, and something in his low, murmuring voice made me tense—like saying too much would send him running, break the moment into pieces like a meteor burning up in the earth's hard atmosphere.
"Oh?" I said, not risking saying more.
A pause. I feared talking had been a mistake entirely, but then Hiei took a deep breath.
"There are layers in Demon World," he murmured. "Some ceilings so high up you can't see them. There are clouds, rain, weather under the bottoms of other layers, but the sky…it is not like the sky here." One finger lifted atop his chest, the barest of indications. "No stars."
Hiei spoke with matter-of-fact precision. I, of course, was instantly fascinated. The manga had hinted at Demon World's geography existing I layers, but no sky? No stars? These were the details I'd longed for as a fan; give them to me, Hiei, and be quick about it. I sat up on my elbow and tried not to look too eager, though it was hard.
"Where does light come from?" I said.
He frowned. "What?"
"Where do you get light? Day and night? If you don't have access to the sky and the sun…"
"Depends on the level." He shrugged. "The top level sees the sun. The rest do not. Some places have no light at all."
My jaw dropped. "No light? Really? That's crazy!" And it explained why Jin was so damn obsessed with Human World. "Where are you from, Hiei?"
"A few levels down." Another shrug. "I never spent much time on the surface. Spirit World controls the surface. Parts of it, anyway. And I wanted nothing to do with them." He looked momentarily disgruntled, probably since he was now on a Spirit World leash, but the expression passed soon enough. He eyed me askance. "And Human World…?"
I wasn't sure if he wanted to know where we got light, or if Spirit World controlled us, or what—but he hadn't known what a constellation was, and something told me that despite his familiarity with a record player, some basic knowledge of Human World might not have been available to him in days past. I sat back and put my hands behind my head, centering my thoughts.
"Human World is a globe. A sphere." My forehead wrinkled. "Well, it's actually an oblate spheroid if you want to get technical about it. Like a ball distended at the ends, but still. It's got a molten core of magma that we've never actually been to. Nobody lives under the earth's crust. And the earth itself floats in space." And I had to sit up again, once more using pebbles to demonstrate my points. "Stop me if you already know this, but the earth spins on its axis while revolving around and the sun." I held a big rock in one hand and moved a smaller rock around it in a circle, spinning it between my fingers all the while. "The sun gives us light and heat, and the spin gives us day and night. Seasons, too, based on the earth's tilt." A moment of nerves; I tucked my hair behind my ear. "Sorry. Am I making sense?"
Hiei eyed the stones. I moved them again, demonstrating spin and orbit. Eventually he nodded.
"OK, good." I flopped back to the ground. "The earth is actually really anomalous in terms of astronomy. We're just close enough to the sun to be warm, but not close enough to get cooked. It's called a Goldilocks Planet—not too cold, not too hot, just right for life to start." A smirk as I thought of the future, of the Goldilocks Planets we'd one day find, though of course they still remained out of reach. "As of 1990, we haven't found any other planets that could support life. It's just us, alone in the vastness."
Hiei didn't seem to hear me. "A globe. No levels," he murmured. "I had guessed, but…" He shook his head. "Tell me, Meigo. What is a meteor?"
I told him. I told him about meteors and asteroids, about planets and galaxies and gravity and black holes, everything I knew about the construction of the universe and the tilt of the whirling stars. He asked few questions, but he listened, eyes propped firmly open even as mine began to ease shut.
"It's a great big world out there," I said, fighting a yawn. "So much to learn. More than I'll ever get to see, and I've seen more than most people." The yawn won, stretching my jaw until it creaked. My eyes fell shut as I said, "I'd like to see Demon World someday. Learn about how it's built."
"You wouldn't like it," Hiei said.
"Oh?"
"No stars. But it's bigger than Human World." He paused, and when he spoke next I heard the barest undercurrent of… not longing, no, but something close. "Even if there's no sky, it's bigger. There's more energy." His words soured. "This place, it's cramped. Cramped and shallow."
I chuckled, eyes cracking despite the weight dragging them down. The stars burned as another meteor cut through the jewel-studded black.
"When I look into the stars like this, I feel small," I whispered. "Like the world is much too big. Like I might just fall off the world and into the sky. Just plunge into dark and stars like a stone into the sea, and…"
I fell asleep mid-sentence, I think, because in the space between words I found myself sitting in a rocking boat on the waves of an ocean—of an ocean that reflected stars and was full of them, too, meteors flying through the water beneath my hull before fading into depths unfathomable. In the sky burned colored stars, jewel toned and luminous, gems shining upon black velvet, huge enough to reach out and touch. A single sail flapped above my head; two oars sat at my sides, waiting for me to take them and sail away to somewhere new.
A dream.
This was a dream.
I gripped the oars.
The boat on the ocean of stars caught a wind in its sail, and I was flying.
I flew for time untold and across miles unnumbered, skimming the ocean of stars with my oars and the laughter of a person at peace. An image of my boat and my joyful face reflected in the water beneath me, but it was not Keiko's face I saw when I leaned over the bulwark to look closer—at least not at first. The image rippled, water undulating, and Keiko's eyes turned blue and her hair grew long and then it was my old face I saw on the ocean of stars, twenty six years old and unfamiliar and mine.
I leaned close, reaching out to claim the image of myself, and the boat capsized into the starry sea.
Only, I didn't drown. The world flipped with us, and the sea became the sky—the same star-studded sky I'd seen with Hiei, galaxies distant pinpricks of silver light. Below my boat lay a forest, mountains looming high in the distance, and between the branches of the trees wound a small stream. Upon its bank a fire burned, red and flickering.
I touched the oars.
I sailed away again.
My boat moved up and down at my will, obeying my commands and carrying me just above the tops of the swaying trees. Gliding over them, I leaned out of the boat and skimmed the leaves with my ghostly hand, feeling them pass over and through my dreaming flesh like whispers of silk. The boat's sail snapped in the wind with chimes like music, keeping tempo with my flight and the sound of my careless laughter—but upon the horizon a yellow light flared and sparked. The sail's song clashed, clanging instead of chiming, discord disrupting harmony at once.
It wasn't a star on that horizon. It wasn't the rising sun.
In time with the beat of my curiosity, the boat turned a course toward the light.
The light grew brighter and brighter as I sailed in its direction, source swimming into focus brick by brick, window by window. At the foot of a mountain I found a mansion, bloated with too many wings and festooned with too many fountains, opulence so overblown it looked nothing short of distasteful—the house of a man who tried too hard to be more than he was, a fair façade concealing a foul foundation. The lights in the windows burned against the night as if to deny the darkness entry—because there was no room for any more darkness inside that rotting house. It was already too full. Despite the lights, nothing but darkness lay beyond those panes of bulletproof glass, house filled to the brim with pain and death I tasted on my tongue.
But a light in one window shined brighter than the others—and it shine warm, and genuine, and soft.
I flew to that window in my boat, borne there on the wind of my whim, and stopped just outside that shimmering glass. A lamp burned on a table within the room that lay beyond. An empty bed sat in a corner, and a chair rested in the center of the room.
Upon that chair sat a figure, head bowed.
Tendrils of long, mint-green hair brushed her lap and the skin of her pale white hands.
I knew her, even though I'd never seen her before.
I reached out to touch the glass, to perhaps pass through and greet the woman in the chair, but at my touch the window crackled and spat sparks—odd, because in my dreams I was never denied entry anywhere, because the dreams were mine. Ever since I learned to control my dreams after Hiruko's invasion, nothing had been beyond my control.
Something about this dream, then, was different.
I felt no pain, because in dreams I never felt pain anymore, but still I kept back from the window. On the other side of the glass hung wires strung in a crisscross barrier, long strips of paper hanging upon their lengths. Black ink on these tags showing like blood against snow. I pressed my hand to the window again. Once more the window spat sparks, keeping me at bay.
Upon her chair, the woman sat up straight. Her eyes opened—and they were the color of rose petals, or poppies, or blood.
"Who's there?" Yukina said.
Her voice was a winter wind, airy but not weak. I floated to the glass and spread my palms over its expanse.
"A friend," I said.
Her head cocked, hair falling along the length of her pale throat. She stood with motions slow and wary, her aqua kimono rustling as she took a small step toward the window. I didn't move an inch as she neared. I noted the point to her chin, the size of her eyes, and the formation of her lovely, delicate features, instead.
She looked very much like Hiei—or perhaps I only wished she did.
This was my dream, after all.
Here, even without a star to cast a wish upon, all my wishes came true.
She scanned the window, peering beyond it until her eyes locked onto me. "What is your name?" she said.
"I don't remember." And that was the truth, as was this: "But I know yours. You're Yukina."
Her eyes widened. "How did you…?"
"My friends and I are coming to save you." I smiled, as close to the window as I dared. "You'll be free soon. I promise."
Dream or no dream, Yukina in any form deserved to know the truth. She put her hand to her mouth, eyes as round as coins.
"You mean—you're coming to—?" Her breath shuddered, eyes welling with crystalline liquid. She came to the window, too, hands outstretched but not daring to touch the wards that kept her bound and captured. With joy in her voice she said, "Oh, thank you, thank you, I—"
But then she stopped.
Yukina lifted her hand to her eye, touched the tears that gathered there, and scowled.
She really did look like Hiei, after all—only she looked like him inverted, features hard with glacial chill as opposed to Hiei's roaring fire. Her warm eyes froze from inside out, transforming into chips of deep red ice, blood frozen on the white tundra of her face.
"This is a trick," she said, voice a wind winding through hard ice. "A trick by Tarukane." Her fist clenched. "It must be."
I said, "It's not."
But she ignored me. "He's tried so many things. So many horrible things, and none of them work—not anymore." Her chin lifted in determination. "But there is one thing he hasn't tried."
"What is it?" I said.
"To give me hope, and then to take it away."
She spoke with the simplicity of a woman on her way to the gallows, emotionless and cold. Just facts, no feelings—as unfeeling as the glaciers she might call her home. I pulled back from the window in shock when she glared at me, all warmth in her gone. Her hand lifted, palm open, to the window.
"Yukina, no—" I said.
"I refuse to hope," said Yukina. Her palm glowed molten blue. "You are not wanted here."
In dreams, I feel no pain.
I felt pain, then.
The blast of arctic chill fired like a gun from Yukina's hand, slamming into me with the howl of a vicious blizzard. The wind caught the sail of my boat and sent it flying upward, carrying the boat and me along with it into the star-filled firmament. The boat spun and spun and spun, earth becoming sky becoming earth becoming sky in a nauseating, star-strewn swirl. I clung to the bottom of my boat, unable to right myself, too dizzy to move even when the vessel stilled and floated aimless above the forest below. Even when the dizziness faded, I remained curled in a tight ball, not daring to move for fear of sending myself spiraling once more into oblivion—for fear of falling up into the wide black ocean dotted with burning stars, endless and void and terrifying, never to return to earth.
Soon the boat began to bob, however. It bobbed with a gentle, swaying rhythm, like it wanted to rock me to sleep—and with a start I woke up.
I woke up in my sleeping bag, back in the tent along the banks of a winding stream and beside a dying campfire, as Hiei's shoes crunched quietly away over the rocky shore.
NOTES:
Hiei probably grabbed the extreme edge of her sleeping bag like someone handling a dirty diaper and dragged her into the tent. Sweet gesture, but performed in a very not-sweet Hiei sort of way. But at least he's learning. I think NQK's mothering of Yusuke prepared her to look after the even pricklier Hiei. I greatly enjoyed getting to work details of Demon World's construction into the convo with Hiei near the end. And the Yusuke scene was totally unplanned—I thought of it, outlined it, and wrote it in about an hour, but it's my favorite part of this chapter.
Also: My boyfriend inspired the whole s'more bit. He suggested campfire songs, too, but that's where I drew the line at Hiei's Camping Adventure.
Mister Roger's birthday was last week on March 20. Happy birthday to him! When my friends want to embarrass me at work, they send me GIFs and videos of him because they know I'll insta-cry. He was a huge part of my childhood and I'm serious when I say he helped me survive it. Sounds cheesy, I know, but he was a special person to many of us, and hopefully he can help Hiei a little bit, too.
Many thanks to those who read chapter 64. Your comments totally made my week, and I'm so happy you enjoyed all the Hiei moments: Dawn17, shen0, ansegiel, DaurthNoS, Silverwing013, raksha, CallmeCrazylol, KaseyKay17, yofa, LadyEllesmere, Yume, Nozomi Higurashi, DeathAngel457, MistressAnko, Ignis76, buzzk97, Dark Rose Charm, Laina Inverse, wennifer-lynn, Just 2 Dream of You, RedPanda923, R Firefly, Miss Ideophobia, C. S. Stars, zybhanwc3, rya-fire1, Lady Rini, Tw2000, Kaiya Azure, ED99, xenocanaan, Lady Skynet, DiCuore Alissa, Marian, ahyeon, blaze1662001, KhaleesiRenee, Nonny, MetroNeko, Guest Starring As, WaYaADisi1, Viviene001, Flen99, Minirowan, Lola, Archaeological, Beccalittlebear, animeotaku19, Strawberry Huggles, Caelyn M, and four guests!
Reminder that I go on hiatus in April for Camp NaNo. Next week we wrap up most of the Rescue Yukina arc, and then we're in Dark Tournament territory at last. See you next Saturday!
