Yu Yu Hakusho: An Alternate Reality

by Last of the Star Makers

What if Shinobu Sensui had one more bad guy? And what if Kurama's classmate got caught up in the whole saving the world mess? Starting in the midst of the Chapter Black Saga, Episode 73 of the anime, join CrisicMelody and Star's on-going roleplay full of action, adventure, and a little romance along the way. There's probably gonna be fun too. We think so. AU. OC/Kurama, OC/Hiei.

165. Episode 249

Shikiyoku made a noncommittal noise in regards to what Akari felt she owed Ryouta, "Mm. I've always wondered myself why the bird has stuck around the level this long. You've certainly found yourself an excellent employee, and given his clan's talents, he would definitely excel at the hiring process as well, should you choose to make use of him. I'd be more concerned with finding a replacement for him. Who knows how long he'll be here."

"As for a second staff, I have demons come to me looking for work from time to time. It would be of little consequence for me to send them your way. I find there are many more of them than I can rightly employ. And sometimes there are worthy ones among their number. It would also be equally simple to spread the word you're looking to hire." 3

She shrugged one of her shoulders. "I asked when he first expressed interest why he was interested, and he gave this vague response about 'the people.' I never really asked what he meant by it because I didn't really care at the time." While she still couldn't quite say she cared about his motivations as much, now she found herself wondering why he was still around, or why he'd come to her and stuck around through her more flighty tendencies.

"Truthfully, I haven't mentioned directly to him I'm considering catering more to the demon populace, even if just for coffee beans." She paused and her brows furrowed. "Not that I think he doesn't already know - he knows just about anything the instant I do - but I have yet to take the moment to sit with him and go over how we would handle such a venture." The hand playing with her hair lowered to rest on the bartop. "I'll probably sit with him this week, now that you've all but encouraged the overnight thing. I doubt he'd find an issue with it." *

Shikiyoku smiled a little at Akari's ignorance on her best employee.

"So, he likely knows things the instant you do because the Ravens of the Bird Tribes are the race blessed with True Sight, able to see the truth. It can mean many different things, manifest in many different ways, but what I've experienced with Ryouta aligns with those gifted with reading people. For most, this is disconcerting. At a single glance he could likely see anything about a person, and without a certain strength of character, such depth of unwarranted assessment is unnerving."

"It's certainly an eye-opening experience, if nothing else." Shikiyoku added as she continued to work at her station. "I so rarely meet one capable of reading me to the depth Ryouta likely has. I hope I have been some source of consternation for him in any case, and not quite so open a book as he is for me. If I'm right, the both of us are genuinely something of a sore spot for the other. I do wonder why he's left his clan." 3

Akari wasn't sure if she wanted to laugh or groan.

Eye-opening is one way to put it, she thought to herself, remembering the times the raven had quite literally shoved her in Kurama's direction. Meddling bird.

"I certainly can tell he doesn't enjoy being in the same room with you or Kurama. He likely doesn't also like being so readable to you guys either." The insight to Ryouta's ability did confirm her suspicions about his stare though, and while she had guessed as much in the beginning, she found it didn't really change anything for her. I'm readable to most anyway.

"He's usually quite quick to either leave the room or serve Kurama so maybe he will leave whenever the fox visits. It's pretty entertaining for me, considering he's usually making everyone else unnerved. The poor guild didn't enjoy his presence."

She sat back in her chair and crossed her ankles together, mumbling something about a rumpled blouse collar and being pushed out the door 'the last time'. *

Shikiyoku laughed, "Well, I'm sure the bird is used to being the most powerful entity in the room. I doubt he enjoys being reminded he's allowed to exist here because Kurama lets him, and something he did pick up from me is I'm just as much of a threat. To put it simply, I could get in contact with his people, and if one of them did find out he was here, they would hunt him down in an instant. They're an exceptionally jealous lot, jealous of their secrets among everything else anyone might learn about them. I don't know how he managed to escape them, but they're never allowed from their tree without due cause, and he's been here much too long in my opinion for his cause not to be that of a rogue. Truthfully, he's only among a handful of them I've ever seen, and I was born on the Ninth." 3

"I had no idea he was from the Ninth," she admitted after a beat. "While I can't speak for his intentions surrounding his presence here," mostly because I don't want to ask, "I can say he's hinted at being here for a good while. Pretty sure he mentioned a previous 'job' when he came to me the first time."

She wondered why he came to her, of all people. Maybe because I don't care enough to ask questions and know so very little about the world his presence isn't a questionable thing to me.

I am nothing if not simple, after all.

"I look forward to work in the morning. Your telling me this just to remind him all of those things is fun for me, honestly." *

Shikiyoku looked up and gave Akari the widest grin the other had likely seen on her face, though it quite possibly reminded the redhead of a certain fox, if somehow even more wicked, more experienced, than the other, and her green eyes flashed.

"I'm sure he's just going to give you this wonderfully long stare. I do hope you'll enjoy it for me.

"It's a game we play, darling. A dangerous one at best, but how else am I to keep myself entertained on a level full of pathetic humans and First Level degenerates. Neither one of them are hardly worth my time, but that lovely creature? I haven't even done any real digging on him, but I have to admit to being somewhat fascinated." 3

The grin and gleam in Shikiyoku's expression definitely was exactly as she expected, and not for the first time since she had met the Kitsune and the woman in front of her, Akari found herself quite glad to be on the pair's good side.

Or, in the least, only utilized for little things like this particular move.

"You're absolutely brutal, and I am so glad you at least seem to not mind me," she told Shikiyoku, her own lips spreading into a smile. "I would hate to find myself on the receiving end of such tactics." *

Shikiyoku gave a rather innocent little shrug, if nothing else in that moment providing a brief glimpse into why she'd gotten away with such things for so long.

"Brutal is such a harsh word. And I feel like it hardly does it justice." She gave Akari a wink before turning back down to her things.

"As to being on the receiving end of it, just stick with me, cupcake. You might learn a thing or two." 3

Akari laughed, a wonderful, full laugh that had her all but throwing her head back.

"I definitely look forward to maybe learning a few things." She settled back into her chair and leaned forward again, this time seriously considering the bottles behind the bar. "It will make life much more interesting and, dare I say, fun."

There was some commotion or another behind her, and she glanced back long enough to see Tarou slamming one hand down onto the table and pointing the index finger of his other hand at Hiei, who only raised a brow at him and eventually responded quietly enough that she couldn't hear it.

She turned back to Shikiyoku with a shake of her head. "I also meant to ask this earlier, before I got sidetracked, but how busy do you expect to be next week? If you're free and want to, we could get lunch." *

Shikiyoku didn't even so much as glance up at the larger demon making a fuss about something somewhere beyond her workstation, slipping her notebook into her pocket and her expression shifting to curiosity as she started to pull out a slip of paper she didn't remember putting in it.

"That sounds quite lovely, Akari. There will likely be a couple of days soon where I expect to be doing some juggling of my own, but once I confirm the details, I'd be more than happy to-" Shikiyoku's eyes widened as she unfolded the piece of paper, her cheeks suddenly dusted with pink.

hi-ei li-kes shi-Ki

Oh, fucking hell.

There was no amount of internal 'get a grip' that could make the sudden pulse of Shikiyoku's core grow calmer in her moment of comprehension and she stuffed the note back into the pocket, but appeared to have forgotten whatever she was saying. 3

Akari raised a brow as Shikiyoku went quiet, at first thinking maybe she was reading over her schedule or whatever - though she doubted she needed to, honestly. But, as the other turned pink and quickly shoved whatever it was away, Akari couldn't help but rest her elbow on the bar and lean her chin in her hand, a particular smile inching across her face.

"You hid that pretty quick. Was it a note from loverboy over there? Or from a lifemate wannabe?" She tried not to smile, but even her eyes held her amusement. *

It was so strange to Shikiyoku for this physical representation of the feelings she already knew Hiei had for her to have quite this intense of an affect on her person, but here she was blushing madly for several seconds all the way down across the top of the pale skin left bare by her very intentional blouse.

He'd said 'I love you,' plenty of times. It seemed to be one of his favorite things to say to her of late, honestly. But there was just something so...she never thought she'd think this of the demon...pure and innocent about his kanji, his barely trained hand having, of his own volition, sought out as best he knew with his limited knowledge and formed the lines on the paper she'd just shoved back into her apron.

And because she knew him, there was no ulterior motive she would have ever associated with such an action. He did it simply because he wanted to. Because he could.

Because he meant it.

Shikiyoku looked up at Akari as the other spoke with wide eyes, still blushing, apparently having forgotten where she'd been or who she'd been speaking to.

All at once Shikiyoku glared at her, particularly at the 'loverboy' bit, but the entire expression was off-set by the pinkish tinge to her ears and lacked the actual threat it might have otherwise had.

She let out a breath and seemed to deflate, losing any previous ire and staring off to the side at nothing in particular.

"Akari I-" Another tiny bit of air, "I know you want to-" She waved a hand nebulously, "-help, but-" Her blush was starting to fade a bit. "Look, even if he was infatuated with me right now, I'm sure it'll pass. I can't help but think I'd be taking advantage of him if I did anything about it. He's still so young. He's certainly not been through his hundred years yet. He's just a child. Maybe...twelve when I met him? Fourteen now by human standards? I don't know..." One of her hands lifted to rub absently at the outside of the other arm. "-but what I do know is I...I love him too much to...would it not just be like I'd been grooming him if I-"

Another breath as she let the rest of it go, everything she hadn't been saying.

"That's what happened to me." She admitted at the last, having come to terms with her First Champion's behavior a very long time ago. "And I couldn't live with myself if I ever did it to anyone else." 3

Akari's arm lowered to rest on the bar alongside the other, her smile softening but never quite fading as Shikiyoku spoke, airing her fear and concern and the very thing she hadn't outright said earlier, but what Akari had thought she meant.

She let the other get it out, waiting patiently for the words to fall quietly in the space between them, and she let silence take its place for a few beats as she assessed Shikiyoku.

You've been thinking this a very long time, hm?

"The person who is worried about being the problem, who agonizes over being the problem, is so rarely the actual problem," she responded after a bit, her tone low and her expression kind. *

Shikiyoku sighed and finally looked out over Akari's shoulder in Hiei's direction.

She'd tried not having feelings for him. She'd tried for a very long time.

His age most certainly played a factor in that right from the start. She could still remember the moment she'd realized just how young the boy was, when there had been a very strong 'nothing' in response to the question of what he desired. He'd likely just taken anything he wanted in his life, and certainly never been offered a single thing quite like what she meant.

And as the years passed, she'd definitely tried to come to grips with the fact that not only was he a child, but he might never want anything to do with what she'd been trying to glean from him in those initial moments.

That had been...easy enough. As easy as it ever would be for someone like her. And having been so very long in the habit of wishing him comfortable instead of her satisfied, she was fully aware of her hesitations to express any sort of affection with him in spite of his, albeit more recent, reassurances.

"Perhaps." She finally said, shifting her gaze back over to Akari's face. "But I do not wish for him to ever have to do a single thing he did not want to do. That, if nothing else, is what I take from my experiences." 3

Akari nodded, respecting Shikiyoku had obviously gone through the very thing she was afraid of doing to Hiei, and not wishing to invalidate those feelings by arguing that the situation was not the same.

Which, in her mind, it was not, but she also recognized she truly knew so little about these two it would likely be more harmful than helpful to butt in too much.

So, instead of arguing Shikiyoku 'would obviously never push him to do something,' she only shrugged.

"I can't imagine Hiei doing something he does not wish to do, especially not without at least a glare."

That being said, I have no idea if he'd tell you no. The look he gives you is certainly not one of distaste.

And in any case, Shikiyoku would likely not be the one who needed the 'help' anyway.

That thought almost made her smile widen.

She crossed her arms on the bar. "So, bartender, what's your favorite drink here? I have yet to make my way around the menu, and I'm terrible about choosing." *

At the idea of Hiei's glare, the breath that left Shikiyoku's nose was likely one of laughter and not a scoff, but it was difficult to tell.

In either case, Shikiyoku raised an eyebrow at the other.

"Are you asking to know or are you asking me to make you something to drink?" 3

Akari tilted her head this way and that, as if unsure.

"Both," she finally answered. *

"My favorite drink and the drink I would make for you if you were asking me to make you a drink are two very different things," Shikiyoku replied as she started gathering together a whiskey glass and a couple of bottles from behind her. "So which will it be?" 3

"Well, the bartender knows best, so I suppose I should let her decide my fate, hm?" Akari's smile twitched up at one side. "Though I definitely am still interested to know your favorite."

"Well, my favorite," boomed a familiar voice as the demon approached and slid not-so-gracefully into the stool next to hers, "is one she said was inspired by me." Tarou crossed his arms on the bar, a direct mirror of Akari's pose, and turned a grin up to Shikiyoku. "G'mornin', Mom. How you doin'?"

"Done arguing with Hiei, hm?"

"There was no argument," the fire demon quipped as he circled the bar, a tray of empty glasses balanced on one hand while the other reached to touch Shikiyoku in a way to warn her of his moving behind her. "Because that implies he could 'win.'" *

"Demon's Fire." Shikiyoku replied simply. "But that is not what I would make for you." She held up a rich, brown-colored bottle of something in one hand and lifted another pair of slightly variant brownish liquids in the other and as the first poured slowly into the glass, she tilted the others to do the same, making a slight back and forth motion with these other bottles.

"Much better, now that you've asked, big guy." Shikiyoku looked up long enough to wink at him before glancing over at Hiei as he touched her, a light smile settling over her features as she leaned into his hand a bit without realizing it before turning back to finish and expertly flipped all the bottles back around to their proper places.

She lifted the glass and set it down in front of Akari.

"A Running Inu for my favorite inu."

The texture of the liquids in the pair of bottles made it look as if there was shaded, curly brown fur all throughout the rest of the beverage, and it did indeed appear as if it were running as the liquid came to rest. 3

Shikiyoku's hand came away from the glass and Akari looked down at it, at first smiling because the name was adorable, as was the sentiment, and then she saw the actual movement in the drink and her mouth opened far enough to form a little 'o'.

"See? This is why she's the best," Tarou remarked, grinning at the drink in front of Akari for a moment before turning back to Shiki. "Hey, Mom, can I get my usual?"

Hiei pulled his hand away only after he'd passed, not missing the lean of her body into his touch and wondering if she'd always done that. Now standing at the station next to Shikiyoku's, he began to unload the dirty glasses from the tray and set them in the dishwasher Shiki had previously unloaded, then he turned and stowed the tray to its rightful place. "Which usual? The Monday usual, Tuesday usual, or the 'I don't know what day of the week it is, I just want to get drunk' usual?"

"Yes."

Akari, finally recovering from her awe at the drink, looked up and smiled her thanks at Shikiyoku and, finally, took a sip from the beverage.

"How is it?" Tarou asked as he turned to Akari. "Smooth, right?"

"So smooth."

Hiei looked between the two and was just about to say something about 'two brain cells from the same brain' when Chisai came to sit on Tarou's other side, casting a smile of hello in Akari's direction before turning to him with an unspoken question he immediately nodded to, and his hands disappeared below the bar only to return with one glass and a couple of bottles. "Aki too?"

"He said he's good." *

Shikiyoku returned Akari's silent sentiment with a small smile as she worked on Tarou's desire, meeting Chisai's gaze with a slight raise of an eyebrow in her hello.

The blue-haired demon found himself staring at the mark down her collarbone, coming back to the overly smug gaze at the top of it on the side of her neck, an expression he recognized all too well by now since the kitsune had taken to sitting among them on occasion.

He hid a little cough behind a hand when he caught Mother looking at him and he nodded towards her other shoulder, "Your hair looks pretty like that, Mommy. I always forget it's so long." 3

Akari took another sip from her drink, appreciating it even as Tarou leaned a little closer next to her, though when she glanced at him from the corner of her eye, she realized he was not looking at her.

She leaned a little away, as if to give him space.

"Mom, what is that?"

She tried not to laugh at the look on his face as he leaned even further over the bar to get a better look at the mark Shikiyoku displayed.

"I mean, yeah, your hair looks nice, but that?"

"You're going to catch flies, Tarou," Akari slipped from her chair and moved to sit on the other side of Chisai, situating herself closer to Hiei's station than Shiki's. "It's a mark, obviously."

"You sly-" He leaned even closer, as if not sure if he believed his eyes. "Is it real?"

Chisai let out a long, heavy sigh, but flashed an apologetic smile at Shikiyoku. He hadn't intended to draw attention to it, despite the fact she so obviously seemed to.

Hiei, his hands still busy pouring a couple of drinks, glanced up only briefly when Akari sat at the very end of his station, her gaze on him burning. "What is it, dog?"

"I was just curious if you'd considered that trip to the Ninth we talked about. Any progress?"

He met her gaze evenly, but did not answer her. If anything, his eyes narrowed just a fraction, not enough to be obvious if one hadn't been paying attention to his expression.

"I take that as a no." *

Shikiyoku raised her eyebrow at the beast of a demon who easily took up the two chairs next to one another when Akari left the one, "What do you think, big guy?"

She slid the drink across the way to him, picking up the second she had been working on and starting to move for the edge of her station, "You must have been more drunk than I thought. You were there when it happened." 3

Tarou raised a brow, his drink in hand but not yet lifted to his lips.

"When did that happen?" He raised his glass halfway, paused, then raised a brow. "Before, or after Hiei slapped you on the ass?"

Chisai choked on his beverage and Akari, previously engaged in conversation with the fire demon, whipped her head to look at Tarou. He did not just say that.

"Which, by the way, great goin' Boss. Even the fox got a good laugh outta that." He grinned devilishly over at Hiei. "Finally gettin' some courage, huh?" *

The memory came flooding back to her senses all at once when Tarou mentioned it, getting an extraneous tingling sensation from where exactly Hiei's hand had been and remembering distinctly how it had remained there for much longer than necessary before sliding up to her lower back.

Shikiyoku blinked, having paused at the very end of the counter, and the tip of the exposed ear on the right side where the mark was turned pink in the meantime as she replied, "Before," and then kept moving, Raion having just waltzed blissfully into the room and meeting her halfway for the drink he'd been wanting the whole way there.

Initially, the cat had only meant to take the proffered beverage, but the sight of the marking at her neck reminded him of the evening she'd gotten it and he smiled wickedly as he wrapped his fingers over the ones already holding his mug so she couldn't step away, reaching out with his other arm to pull her much too close by the waist as he held the mug away from them and bent down over her exposed skin to plant a somewhat biting kiss right in the midst of the mark's haughty face that sent tingles all across the back of Shikiyoku's neck.

"Your hair looks lovely, mother." He breathed into her skin as he didn't immediately leave her proximity and instead moved up to her ear to murmur, "You should wear this blouse more often," before doing similarly with her earlobe what he did with her neck. 3

Shikiyoku's pause and reply to Tarou not only reassured her she had indeed heard the demon right, but that Akari was most certainly not dreaming.

She turned back to Hiei with a grin unlike any she'd worn in literal years, and she lowered her glass to the bar. She lowered her tone to a conspiratorial whisper, "So, Hiei." He blinked and looked down at her, though his gaze did flicker away again briefly before coming back. "Tell me, was it what you wanted it to be?"

When he turned to give her this look of confusion, he saw she wiggled her eyebrows at him, and his own furrowed.

"I at least deserve some detail, since I'm the one who gave you the idea." She stuck her nose in the air a little before taking a sip from her drink.

Understanding hit him and he lowered his gaze down to the glasses in his hands, busying himself with nothing that truly needed to be done, but something that at least made him look busy.

Akari grinned. "That good, huh?" *

"Hm. Is that a threat or a promise of something, my lion?" Shikiyoku told him, neither fighting nor completely relaxing in his embrace.

He nudged her cheek with his nose, genuinely smiling a little before he planted a final kiss there and stood her back up on her feet, letting her unwind her fingers from his own.

His thoughts upon being reminded of the fox's mark had been something along the lines of 'THIS is what I think of THAT,' and having satisfactorily expressed himself, he wrapped his arm across her bare shoulders and contented himself with moving her over towards the table Akihiko occupied seemingly all by himself for the moment. 3

Akari watched Hiei busy himself, not looking at her or answering any of her teasing, and yet somehow seeming to come across as bashful to her as he kept his stare down at whatever he pretended he was doing.

She didn't notice Tarou watching Hiei either, and Chisai sat quietly sipping his drink.

"You know, if you liked that, I have so many other ideas you'll enjoy."

His hands paused very briefly, but he continued working without looking up.

"Though I must say, I'm proud of you, Sparky. Didn't think you'd follow through."

He finally looked up at her, and while she might have thought it would be expressionless, something about his gaze told her it wasn't quite a well-put-together mask of collected calm.

"I'm being serious."

"I don't doubt that for a second."

"Was that curiosity?"

"..."

~!**!~

Akihiko polished off the last bit of coffee Akari had no doubt made herself, and while it didn't do anything for the headache beginning to bloom across his forehead, it did at least taste good enough to take his focus away from it, however briefly.

With the table empty as it was, he didn't bother to hide the rub of his fingers against his eyes.

Though when he sat back in his chair again and turned to look around the room, he realized Raion had met with Shikiyoku - though he wasn't quite sure when that happened - and the pair were headed his way.

He eyed the mark on her skin for only a moment before giving her a look.

I sincerely hope it accomplishes what you want it to.*

"Oh, are you wanting to kiss it as well, Hiko? That would make me two for two today." She met his gaze, but replied to it somewhat flippantly as Raion went to sit down, pulling her along beside him. 3

Akihiko almost smiled at her.

"If you really want to know, you should send a drink sometime," he told her, echoing words she'd said to him once before.

~!**!~

"It WAS!"

Hiei gave the briefest sigh and finally looked up. "Is this why you're here today?"

"Oh no, this is just the fun part."

"-Akari?"

She turned to look at Chisai, giving him a muted smile. "I'm sorry, I missed what you said."

"I asked how work has been. It's been a bit since I've seen you."

"It's been good. We've been busy enough to keep me from being bored, but not so busy that it's all I think about."

"I thought I heard you say somethin' to Mom about being open late hours?" Tarou asked, grinning.

"Mmm, I haven't decided yet. It'll depend on a couple of things, really."

"Well, I think it's a fun idea," Chisai chimed. "I know it's helped the bar."

She nodded. "That's what Shikiyoku was saying."

"You would only benefit," Hiei chimed from across the bar. "If Shikiyoku suggested it, I doubt you would have any trouble at all getting the business."

Akari turned to look at Hiei. "Well, should I decide to go that route, she will be the first to know, other than Ryouta. They would be able to help me staff the place after human hours."

"That guy's creepy," Tarou grumbled. *

~!**!~

"Ah, pity. Well, for you, handsome, my lips are always here when you decide you need them in any case." She replied as Raion sat down and then pulled her onto his lap, wrapping an arm around her and resting his drink on the table as he eyed the rest of the room for the first time.

"Raion, I'm supposed to be working." Shikiyoku told him when she suddenly realized where she ended up.

"You are working."

He took a drink and didn't meet her eye at first.

"How is this working?"

"It's working for me."

Shikiyoku narrowed her eyes playfully at him and he grinned into his next sip of his drink.

"It's very soft." He told her, the arm at her waist reaching upwards from where he'd rested it over her hip to weave his long fingers into the midst of some of the hair hanging down over her thigh on the other side as his gaze dropped down to watch. "You should wear it like this more often."

"I'm certain that would be much more trouble than it's worth." Shikiyoku's gaze lifted from where he continued tangling his fingers and she settled a long stare on Akihiko's features. 3

Akihiko watched Raion and Shiki for a moment, Raion's antics amusing and Shikiyoku's letting him get by with them even more so.

He reached behind his head and tightened the updo he'd made out of his hair sometime earlier that morning, feeling a few strands come loose to fall around his face and yet not caring enough to pull the elastic from his hair and redo it. Instead, he swiped the one dark strand from the center of his face and settled again into his chair.

In that moment, he became aware of the stare pointed in his direction, and he wondered how long she'd been staring without his notice.

He raised a brow at her, but did not ask about what was on her mind.

Because if he asked, she might make an attempt to kick him out for the day… or maybe even the week.

He shrugged at her.

~!**!~

Akari almost argued against Ryouta's "creepiness" to Tarou, but the other just as quickly downed his drink and slid the glass in Hiei's direction. "Fill 'er up, boss."

Hiei had the glass filled before it even came to a full stop.

"If you're genuinely curious, I'm sure I could give you some pointers, Hiei," Akari finally told him, her gaze settling on him with a seriousness she hadn't had before. "I'm sure it's tough, navigating things on your own with only this place as a source for ideas."

Hiei met her gaze evenly, considering her. "And why would I want your advice?"

"Because when you slapped her on the ass, she probably didn't know how to react, and you probably liked it."

He narrowed his gaze at her.

"That's what I thought." *

~!**!~

Shikiyoku hardly noticed Raion leaning closer to bury his nose in her hair, though she did tilt her head toward him in some semblance of affection, looking instead over at Akihiko across the way.

"Hiko..." She told him quietly, one of Raion's eyes coming open to regard the guild's Second while his nose stayed in her hair, as if he fully expected the other to once again refuse her offer. "...I'm here if you need me, okay?" 3

This time, Akihiko's lips did actually spread into the barest of smiles, a glimpse into the appreciation he had for her even as he shook his head once in denial of her offer, knowing she meant it from the bottom of her heart and yet wanting to not trouble her.

"Thank you, but I'm okay."

~!**!~

Hiei slid Tarou's glass back in his direction, though his stare remained pinned on Akari.

She shrugged at him and gave a teasing smile. "The offer is there if you want it. I won't pester you about it anymore today."

And, to make true on her word, she turned to Chisai and Tarou. "So, if I did open the shop for all hours of the day and night, is there anything you two would like to see added? A type of sweet, maybe a sandwich? I also have means of getting teas."

"Would you be able to get tea from the other Levels?" Chisai asked immediately, his brows raising.

"That depends on what kind it is and where." *

~!**!~

Shikiyoku's eyebrows drew together briefly in a frown as she watched him steadily for a breath before shifting away from Raion's lap in Akihiko's direction, the lion letting her go, but watching her even as he took his next drink.

And even if you don't know what you need...

She leaned over his chair and wrapped her arms around him, holding him for several seconds until she could almost feel their hearts sync up as she buried her face against him like she could guard him from all cares even for just a moment or two.

...I'm always here.

"Lying doesn't suit you." She told him quietly, nudging her nose against him just enough to make it an intentional gesture before she started to release him and move for the bar. "You're much too good for that."

Raion's gaze followed her as she left them, "She's somethin' else, isn't she?" 3

He'd expected her to go back to work, maybe even just pat him on the shoulder as she passed him by.

He did not expect, in any way at all, for her to bend over and wrap him in the warmest, most gentle hug he was sure he'd received since the loss of his mate. He blinked and turned his eyes to watch her out of the corners, too stunned to decide whether he should hug her back or not.

And by the time he might have come to a conclusion one way or another - his hands twitched against the table - she gave him one last squeeze and then stood, leaving with him instead a commentary on his fib.

He frowned at her back, watching her move away.

It's been a very long time since I've had contact like that, he realized.

Raion's voice drew his gaze away from Shikiyoku finally, and he felt himself let out not just a breath of air, but with it a little of the exhaustion he'd been carrying since the day before.

"Something else entirely," he agreed after a moment, his eyelids coming closed as if he might savor the moment that had already passed, knowing deep down what she'd done for him in that moment was more than simply hugging him.

~!**!~

Chisai considered Akari thoughtfully. "I'm not sure if it's exclusively in the area where I grew up, but I've had it on the Third." He took a sip of his drink, then continued, "Are you planning to add demonic brews and foods?"

Akari bobbed her head this way and that. "I mean, if I am going to consider catering to demons, it wouldn't hurt to have something a few of them might be more familiar with during those specific hours." She leaned into the edge of the bar and regarded him steadily. "Especially for those who can't get back to their home."

"I'm sure there would be a way to find someone who would sell it to you in bulk," Chisai added. "If you decide to go that route, of course."

"I'll keep it in mind, Chisai. Next time you're around, will you bring some for me to look at?"

He nodded. "I have lots of it right now, so if you want, I can give you quite a bit for sampling and, if you decide to use it this way, for finding a merchant or something elsewhere." *

~!**!~

She'd almost said it.

Just like she'd almost given him a kiss on the cheek and chickened out at the last minute to nuzzle at him, somehow, somewhere knowing he needed the embrace more than she needed to kiss him.

But she wasn't certain he was ready to hear it just yet. To have someone else tell him something that frankly he probably already knew anyway.

She'd known for a long time, just like she'd known for a long time with Hiei, though that was much longer. And different still. In this case, she was certain the feelings were reciprocated, if not yet admitted.

There were many different kinds, after all.

She glanced over her shoulder at him as she rounded behind the bar, the small smile she gave in his direction saying it even if her lips hadn't.

I love you, Hiko. 3

Conversation drifted between Akari, Chisai, and Tarou for a while before the trio ordered more drinks, and as Chisai and Tarou turned to Shikiyoku at her station, Akari turned to Hiei, who looked just about as unbusy as he could be.

He raised a brow at her when she did not immediately order something and, after a few moments, he held up a glass in silent question.

She considered him for a moment before nodding. "I'm feeling a bit indecisive today, so I'll trust your skill."

"I doubt it will be so fun as the first one you had," Hiei said as he set down a short glass and began to pull one bottle, and then one more from their different places on the shelf behind him.

She watched him work, curious about what he might think up. "You seem to enjoy being behind the bar."

He nodded. "More enjoyable than most other places."

She watched as the liquid he poured seemed to play through different colors, ribboning between reds and blues as he poured it over ice. "I'm sure it's a welcome break from jobs surrounding Infected."

He placed the first bottle down and the liquid in the glass turned clear, curious enough to draw Akari's eyes away from the fire demon across from her as he reached for the second bottle. "I heard you ran around the upper levels yourself for a while."

She blinked up at him, though his eyes stayed cast down at the odd smoke-like substance languidly falling from the uncorked bottle."Did you?"

"Some months ago, I think."

"Hm."

Her noncommittal hum echoed the sentiment she'd responded with telepathically, and as Hiei tipped this bottle up again and corked it, he stared at her. "Do you still do that?"

"No."

He turned away from her to replace the bottles, having guessed as much.

"I don't know how you do it, honestly. It's exhausting, even with the not-so-strong or smart ones."

Hiei turned to her again and slid the finished drink in front of her, the liquid once more playing with blues and reds before turning clear when it stilled. "It's easier with a group," he admitted.

She watched the foggy substance lazily moving over the drink's surface, interested in how it too changed colors, though not quite as quickly as the drink itself. When she finally did move to pull the glass closer to herself, she marveled at it dancing in various shades of purple, and while she did not so much as lift it from the bar, she did keep her fingers attached to the glass so she could continue to enjoy the color. "And your reasons are far less personal than mine were, I'm sure."

"Personal?"

She realized she hadn't shared this much with anyone so purposefully and, after a beat of hesitation, she glanced up long enough to meet his gaze and give an imperceptible nod. When she did not go on, however, she was surprised he did not question her further, or push for an answer telepathically.

Her expression softened from its sudden guarded mask, and she let out a little breath. "I take it you work around here when not busy doing guild work?"

"Most days."

"Well, it's a great station, if you ask me."

He busied himself with dishes, wiping a few clean. She watched him work for a bit, noticing and counting the times he stole glances to the side.

"You've lost your subtle touch, Hiei."

He turned his eyes down from the third glance in Shikiyoku's direction since she'd turned to face him.

"Not that it's a bad thing; I'm not genuinely trying to tease you this time."

He lifted a brow at her and she half-smiled.

"Not entirely, anyway."

"That's what I thought."

Her smile faded and she watched him with a keen eye. "Your note was a good touch."

"Hm."

She lifted her glass and swirled the liquid around, amused by its color and the 'fog' and too entranced by it to drink it just yet. "It was very clever, and very sweet. If you haven't considered doing that again, you should."

"And just why are you meddling?"

Akari lifted her gaze and met his squarely, evenly. "Because, unfortunately for you, I see a lot. And while your efforts are adorable, they won't be enough, Hiei. They're small, and they might make an impact for a little while, but there's potential in what you want, and you have no idea how to get there yourself."

His eyebrows twitched and he leaned onto the counter as if to whisper a threat in her direction. "And if I don't want your meddling?"

"Well, that's your decision, and I can only offer so many times, sparky." She lifted her glass to her lips finally, savoring the flavor even as she stared at Hiei just as intensely as he stared at her. "You have an effect on her not many others will have."

He didn't respond, at first opting for studious silence as they continued to stare at one another. She casually sipped at her drink as the seconds ticked by, not even so much as blinking away from the challenge he posed before her in the moment.

"If you don't believe me, which it's clear you don't, then do something everyone else always does that you never do, and see her reaction."

"And why is it I would entertain you?"

"Because what I'm offering would only be to your benefit. And if I'm wrong, then I'll walk away right here and now, and I'll never once mention a thing to you about Shikiyoku unless it is dire information."

His eyes narrowed at her ever so slightly as he weighed the two options, thinking about the last thing she'd mentioned to him and how well that particular venture had gone, and yet suspecting she meant to only amuse herself.

As if she could read his mind, he watched one of her eyebrows fly up and disappear into her bangs. "This would be entirely too much trouble to bother you over if it were simply for my own entertainment."

He stood upright and leaned away from the bar again, his hands lowering to the towel and glass he'd abandoned. "And what would you have me do, hm? Slap her again?"

"No, no. That's the thing, I'm far too easy for her to read. I'm quite like an open book, whereas your expressions hardly change at all."

He looked up at her, and she wondered briefly if he meant to express confusion or irritation at the fact.

"What's something she gets all the time?"

Without hesitation, Hiei answered, "Looks."

Akari stared at him for a moment, finding it a quite innocent observation. "What kind of looks?"

In all honesty, she had quite an idea of what looks Shikiyoku often got, but her definition of 'looks' and his definition of the word could be quite different.

When he did not answer, she realized it was entirely possible he didn't particularly have an explanation for those looks, and she let out a breath. "Watch me, and tell me if it's like this."

She glanced up and around the still scarcely-populated bar, her eyes roving from Chisai and Tarou next to her to the table where Akihiko and Raion sat. She deliberated for a moment, glanced to the side at Hiei to see if he was indeed paying attention, then she turned and, once she was sure Raion was not so distracted he would miss the feeling of her eyes on him, created an expression she hadn't purposely employed in many, many years.

She steadied the stare at the lion demon, turned sideways in her chair with one arm languidly across the back of it and the other arm perched on the edge of the bar. A few seconds ticked by where she could see him becoming aware of being watched, and she waited until his ear flicked in her direction and he finally turned to meet her gaze.

She raised a brow ever so slightly and earned one in return, and when she was satisfied with the reaction he gave her, she turned away and picked up her drink again. She settled back into her seat with one leg crossed over the other, glad to know Raion's reaction was just about what she wanted it to be - an acceptance of a compliment and nothing more - and she finally lifted her once-more calm expression in Hiei's direction.

After a few beats, he gave her a slight nod, and she mirrored it. "That's what I thought."

She battled with herself for a few moments, realizing his repeating that look would be quite cruel to Shikiyoku, and she didn't particularly want to make things worse for her.

"I have no doubt that you would get a reaction from her with that, but honestly, I'm not so sure you could pull that off," she said, only half fibbing. "Like I said earlier, you're not so expressive."

She lifted her drink to her lips and sipped, musing over the possibilities. She stared at the top of the bar, not seeing it, and after another small draw from her glass, she felt the hairs on the back of her neck begin to stand on end.

She looked up with the intent to make sure it was not Raion who was staring at her - it wouldn't be the first time she miscalculated something like that - and instead she found a pair of fiery red eyes staring at her from across the bar.

Every muscle in her body tensed and slowly, carefully, she reached out and pressed her palm to Hiei's cheek and turned his stare away, physically forcing him to turn his head to the side opposite of where Shikiyoku stood.

"Alright, fine, you achieved that stare. But do not ever point that at me again, because neither of us will like the results, I'm sure." She kept her hand on his face long enough to make sure he did not immediately turn to look at her again and, after a longer drink from her glass, she finally sat back in her chair again and lowered her hand to her lap. "And don't point that at her either. It wouldn't be fair." *

"I believe she had some concern over stealing my clientele, but as I reassured her of how great in numbers we really are in this vicinity, I think she will go ahead with it. Demons are more willing to travel farther than their human brethren for a decent drink or meal, and there are so many more who might drop by during her evening hours than there are those who stop here for the night."

"I think having a cafe just for us would be wonderful."

"You mentioned before having rooms to let, Ma. Were you ever gonna do anything about that?"

Shikiyoku eyed Tarou carefully, thinking about her and Hiei's conversation in regards to a Guild Hall and doubting her Consort had a chance to truly speak with the others about it yet, but she nodded.

"Hai. I have every intention to expand, but if Akari is to open all hours, I will likely wait." Wait to see what Hiei wishes to do for land, but wait indeed.

She slid another drink into Tarou's awaiting hand and he lifted it to his lips as she turned away to start to make something else.

His eyes slid over to the pair next to him, and like he'd suspected a minute ago, there was definitely something more than just civil conversation happening between his boss and the inu. Hiei hardly stood for civil conversation, much less actual conversation in Tarou's experience, so the dark-haired Jaganshi leaning closer to the dog intrigued him.

He continued to keep half an eye on the other pair even as Chisai kept Shikiyoku talking about the rooms he mentioned having heard her want to add, fairly certain the dog and fire duo were seemingly oblivious to his...well, he couldn't call it 'eavesdropping' since there weren't any 'eaves' to pick up in the first place.

Their faces spoke volumes, though. And having spent as much time with his guild leader as he had meant he was better able to gauge the expressions there than the general passerby.

"Well, you ought to be having some rooms so there can be women in them." Tarou added into the conversation, earning a hard slap on his arm from an irritated Chisai as he waggled his eyebrows at Shikiyoku.

If he had been expecting her to blanch or otherwise react, he should have known better, finding her sometimes piercing jeweled gaze raising up to meet him from behind those no-frame glasses she always wore.

"If you think I don't already have the sorts of rooms you're speaking of, you haven't been paying attention at all, Tarou. Drunk or no."

He blinked at her and then suddenly looked around the room like he would find another door he had been missing, maybe to a cellar or something, but only found the door to the apartments, which he'd been in but could only ever really recall Hiei or Shikiyoku herself moving through, and a door way down on the other side of the building that led to the bathrooms and outside.

By the time he came back to the conversation, the other two had moved on and he glanced over at Hiei and Akari again just in time to see his Boss feeling somewhat...irked? At something Tarou could only assumed had been said between them, and then watched the strangest sort of sly confidence slide over the other's features Tarou recognized from the slap-incident like it was only yesterday as the fire demon steadied a 'come hither' gaze on Akari that Tarou nearly choked into his drink at.

By the time he managed to wipe his sleeve across his lips, Chisai and Shikiyoku both were blinking up at him and he waved them off as he coughed again and nodded thanks to Shikiyoku when another drink slid his way.

Downing half of this one in one go, Tarou heard someone else come into the bar and by the time he lowered his glass, he caught sight of the second of the two kitsune Shikiyoku hired slipping around the corner of the bar with his long, tousled brown hair hanging down over his shoulders and his piercing ice-blue gaze trained on Shikiyoku with a rather wicked grin.

He'd spotted the other fox's mark from across the room.

Tarou noticed the expression on Shikiyoku's face seemed somewhat resigned when she suddenly found herself caught between the much taller kitsune and the edge of the countertop where she'd been standing.

"Miss me, Za Joie?" He leaned down and stuck his nose into the midst of her hair somewhere near that ear, still grinning as he ran his hands over her shoulders and down her back and sides before embracing her with them, his tail wagging once behind him before steadily swaying back and forth and the ears at the top of his head standing at full attention.

"Not in the slightest, Tsurara." She'd leaned her cheek away from him until he reached up with one of the arms wrapped around her to trace at the marking on the other side of her neck and she stopped, letting out a huff.

"Looks to me like you might have missed me a whole bunch." The tip of his finger was glowing blue and left a light frost over the tattoo as he traced across its lines. "You even went and put me on yourself in permanent, eh? I'm flattered."

"Don't be." She replied mildly, trying not to give the kitsune an inch even as the frost continued to spread non-threateningly across her skin, though it did make the hairs at the back of her neck begin to stand on end and send a pleasant tingle down her spine.

He laughed, trying to get a rise out of her, and shifted his head over to her other side as if to study it for a second, fingertip having continued to roam lower over the mark until nearly reaching the top of her green blouse.

"Hm, no, I must say, I'm not nearly so handsome as that." He said after a beat and, just before his finger might have shifted her clothing out of the way to follow the rest of it, coming up with it instead of poke at the face of the fox on her neck. "Silvers've got us Browns beat in that department, no contest. Ah, well. Can't say I blame you." He planted a big ol' smooch right in the middle of her cheek as he gave her one last squeeze and then backed off, nodding and saying hello to the others before slipping by Hiei to move further down the bar and towards a patron who walked up on that end. 3

Akari let out a long breath of air from her lips, her cheeks puffed out with the amount of it she slowly exhaled. Some sound next to her caught her attention and, after a moment, she turned with her glass pressed to her lips to look at Tarou as he took a very long drink from his glass.

"Need another drink, dog?"

"Yes, a stiff one."

She polished off her pretty purple drink and set the empty glass down in front of her, her eyes turning to watch as a kitsune moved not just behind the bar, but purposefully in Shikiyoku's direction.

"Hiei. Pay attention."

She didn't have to look at him to know the fire demon sat her drink in front of her and turned to look at Shikiyoku, and as the kitsune pinned the woman, Akari hid her frown behind her glass.

That was a lot, and Shikiyoku's lack of reaction didn't surprise her in the least.

She's known Kurama for a long time, after all.

She took note of every little touch the kitsune dragged across Shikiyoku, analyzing it and wondering how it might be changed to suit someone like Hiei who was not quite so versed in expressing such emotions and wants, and as the bartender stalked away from Shikiyoku, her eyes followed him until he passed behind Hiei.

At that moment, she met Hiei's gaze and he watched her with a peculiar stare.

"So, here's the thing." She leaned her elbow on the bar and poised her glass so it continued to hide her lips and the twitch that threatened a smile. "That? Was a lot, and I know that you could get a brilliant reaction, but it means something you don't particularly want to venture into right now."

"Says who?"

"Says the demon who knows what it hints at."

"..."

"However, Hiei, leaning into her like that? And kissing her? Would work wonders in your favor. You already kiss her cheek."

She paused and considered him for a moment.

"You know, her shoulders are especially bare." *

Chisai let out a sigh, "Mommy, why do you let him do that?"

"Because I like it, Chisai." She said as she made another drink or two at her station, "If I didn't, I wouldn't let him."

Tarou just laughed and Chisai next to him frowned further.

"Didn't look like you liked it."

"If you give a kitsune an inch, dear one, they will take a mile."

"It's true!" Tsurara called all the way from the other end of the bar.

"Besides, I'm well aware of what he's up to and in any case he's not quite so stupid as to risk making me upset."

"I heard that!"

"I know. You have ears, even if you only employ them half the time."

Shikiyoku hadn't ever raised her voice from her conversational tone.

There was a somewhat large, offended sniff that echoed back to them.

"And they're very lovely ears, too."

The air at the other side of the bar lifted at the compliment.

She hadn't even looked up from what she was doing, either. 3

"I am aware her shoulders are exposed, Akari."

She almost laughed at his response. "Oh dear. Okay, here:"

She finally set her drink down and resituated herself in her chair, her tension finally alleviating.

"If you want a wonderful reaction, you really probably wouldn't have to do half of the things he just did. He was trying to get a reaction. So, my advice? Pin her similarly in place and then kiss her. On the shoulder, since it's exposed and would be different from your last one." She leaned her chin in her hand. "And don't be afraid to linger a bit. I'm sure your natural warmth could be an advantage after that particular encounter."

He tossed his towel over his shoulder and crossed his arms at her, but before he could make some witty remark, she lifted an eyebrow in his direction.

"The worst thing that could happen here is she does what she just did and doesn't move. The best thing is she reciprocates, with a kiss or whatever I'm sure she thinks you would like."

Her eyes sparkled at him.

"I'm sure you'll benefit, however, and be quite pleased with what you find." *

"I don't understand." Chisai was still frowning, but he didn't ever particularly care to see how strange men seem to act when around her.

Shikiyoku passed Tarou the shot he wanted and he was grinning too hard to even lift it, "You don't hafta understand, pipsqueak. You're prolly not gonna understand anyway." When the glass came up to his lips, they were still stretching along the one side. 3

Hiei stared at Akari for a long moment, battling with himself between doing what she so obviously wanted him to do and doing it because he was undeniably curious to know how Shikiyoku would react.

And the longer he stared, the brighter her eyes glimmered at him and the more mischievous her smile seemed to get.

"You'll leave me alone after?"

"If that's what you want."

He uncrossed his arms and turned down to roll his shirt sleeves up a little higher, a sort of bravery welling within him as he revealed more of the intricate swirl tattooing on his left arm. He rolled the right sleeve up just a little as well and, after he reached under the bar for a glass, he turned and took a few steps in Shikiyoku's direction.

He shuffled until he was standing behind Shikiyoku and, after seeing she had a bottle in one hand, he reached up and pulled the bottle from her hand and leaned into her, his hands, closed around objects, coming to rest on the bar on either side of her as he leaned his head down and kissed her exposed shoulder.

He lingered there for a moment, aware of the chill on the skin of her neck even as his hands moved to come together in front of her and pour liquid from the bottle he'd stolen from her into the glass he'd brought with him.

Once the glass was half full, he righted the bottle again and placed it gingerly back into the hand he'd slipped it from, and he finally pulled away long enough to kiss the not-so-chilled spot of her neck before he lifted his head altogether to give her a sort of smile.

(Thanks for the bottle.) *

Tarou glanced over at Akari and Hiei again, keeping his thoughts to himself as he watched Hiei pull his sleeves up further.

Shikiyoku reached behind her for a bottle with one hand as the other shunted some ice into a glass she'd already pulled, Raion's desire having permeated her awareness and the cat wanting another drink.

She stared down at the glass for a moment and then blinked over at her suddenly empty hand, her pour having been completely stopped before she could even begin, and in the next moment aware of the fire demon leaning into her and feeling her neck flush suddenly when he didn't just pass her by.

Her own hands suddenly stuck in some sort of limbo near Raion's glass as she very obviously didn't know what to do with herself, Hiei's lips sent energy that hadn't quite stirred inside of her glimmering across her skin when he kissed her, the previously cooled bits Tsurara had toyed with warmly quickly and sending goose bumps all down her right arm and across the back of her shoulders.

Shikiyoku stared down at his hands as he used what he needed from her, blinking at them like she didn't quite understand.

The second kiss did as much the same as the first, her scalp prickling as her hair rustled silently with energy more easily than it would if she had it pulled back in a bun.

She didn't seem aware she had the bottle again, turning to give him a wide-eyed look as best she could while her core continued to pulse wildly in her chest at his proximity.

She was lucky he decided to speak between them, because he might not have gotten an answer from her lips if he chose to say something aloud, blinking at him this time instead of her empty hands.

As it was, the response was stammered anyway, her confusion sending mixed signals as she began to lean and relax back into him without at first realizing it.

(Y-...y-you're welcome...?) 3

Hiei didn't immediately move away after he lifted his head and his hands stayed perched on the bar in front of her, his eyes watching her from the corners as she turned to look up at him. He didn't miss her body weight shifting back against him, and he didn't miss the slightest blip of something across her features that, on some level, amused him even as her confusion overrode it.

The bond responded to her confusion and response with a quiet sense of amusement on his part, and after a beat he leaned down to oblige what he realized had been some sort of quiet want, and he kissed her shoulder one more time.

(I love you.)

And with that, he ever so slowly, somewhat reluctantly, pulled himself away from her, his hand not holding the half-filled glass just briefly brushing her hip as if a delayed warning of his presence until, finally, he stepped back in the direction of his station, only breaking eye contact when he turned to grab a bottle from one of the shelves behind him. *

Shikiyoku couldn't have left him if she'd wanted to, her hands finally coming to rest-one with the bottle-onto the countertop as she stared over at him with that same surprised look.

She never expected it with him. A kitsune from across the room and she knew what he was up to, but the demon standing next to her could just take her off her guard any time he wanted.

And he could have literally done anything to her in those moments, rooted in place and at the mercy of the energy he'd so successfully stirred through her limbs as she was.

She could hardly breathe.

And his 'confession,' as it were, in their bond, did nothing to explain to her why he'd done it, despite the fact that apparently he'd done it because he loved her.

When she felt him leaving her, she followed his warmth at first, whether feeling his reluctance to go and responding to it or sharing in it herself, and before the tiny, rational part of her brain could manage to bring her to a full stop before she went through with it, she reached out to brush her fingers against the inside of his forearm and kiss his cheek as he vacated her immediate vicinity, and finally dropped her gaze again when his eyes left her to blink at the glass with ice and bottle in her hand before curling her fingers around the glass to hold it in place and returning to what she'd been doing. 3

Akari watched the entire exchange with far more interest than she meant to show, her glass poised to hide her half-open mouth as Hiei retreated from Shikiyoku slowly, receiving what could only be seen as a 'don't go' in Akari's eyes as he returned to his place at his station.

Her eyes trailed after the fire demon, noticing the slightest twitch of his lips just before he turned his eyes away from Shikiyoku and reached for some bottle on the wall.

It wasn't until he turned to set the glass on the bar and fill it with the new drink that he finally glanced at her, all trace of whatever emotion that had been on his face during his and Shikiyoku's little moment gone and replaced with the usual muted sort of calm.

He studied her as the liquid fell from bottle to glass, and she noticed he lifted it before it spilled even without looking down at it.

"Well, that was...interesting."

She sat back in her chair and crossed one arm over herself so she could rest her other elbow on that arm and continue to hold her glass up, swirling its contents as she considered the other.

"You're in pretty deep, hm?"

He dropped his gaze to the glass briefly, his hand previously holding the bottle he'd used to finish filling it now picking up the drink and setting it in front of her. "So. About your offer."

"Mhm?"

"What exactly are you proposing?" *

Tarou stared at the two with his glass lifted halfway to his mouth and his lips already parted for it as something about the entire encounter between his boss and the demon he called mother drew him in and wouldn't let him look away.

As Hiei finally broke gaze with Shikiyoku, Tarou snapped his mouth shut and blinked, only to lift his drink to his lips and take a sip as he waited for his own blood to stop pumping quite so intensely through his veins.

A tiny sigh from somewhere near his elbow had him glancing in Chisai's direction to see the disgust his guildmate had shown at the earlier kitsune display of 'romance' had been replaced with a dreamy sort of expression Tarou might have thought he'd been wearing himself half a minute ago if he'd known any better.

In any case, he understood the kid's unspoken sentiment.

Hot damn.

Tarou watched Shikiyoku carefully in the moments after the encounter, unaware of how she too was trying to calm the energy coursing through her veins. He wouldn't have connected the two himself, but the air certainly smelled a little sweeter than it had before the little punk made his move on her.

Something about the way Hiei glanced over at Akari and then slid a drink her way definitely caught his attention, though Tarou wasn't quite so stupid as to draw attention to how he knew, only turning to rest his elbows on the bartop behind him as Shikiyoku left her station and he heard the doors across the way open. 3

Akari eyed the drink in front of her, recognizing she did not order this one, and she also had no idea of its meaning. "Is this your request for more information?" she asked him after a moment, watching the drink as if it might move.

"It is."

She nodded to herself, but said nothing and made no move to accept the drink just yet, still processing the scene that had played out in front of her.

In the meadow, she'd seen first hand how Hiei was so smitten with Shikiyoku, so easily left at her mercy even if it seemed he didn't understand why. That made sense, and while she hadn't mentioned it to the woman in question, Akari felt maybe Hiei had felt that way for a while.

Because he would not have easily come to feel such things.

He'd been too hungry for blood when she first was around.

She lifted her eyes to watch Hiei as he moved about, his hands working on another order for someone else even as she scrutinized him, almost surprised by his patience in answering his question after her own pushing of the topic.

If she hadn't seen it with her own eyes, she would have a hard time believing this demon had Shikiyoku so wrapped around his finger as well.

Of course, not in the sense that he could make her do whatever he so pleased. She doubted anyone could make her do a thing she didn't want to do.

But that exchange?

He has no idea how powerless she was to his whims just then.

And Akari admitted to herself she wasn't so sure if she could genuinely coach him in a way that would get him to realize all of those things.

And, really, she knew for sure she wouldn't be able to… educate him on certain topics, all of which would likely lead to his growth and, subsequently, the growth of his relationship with Shikiyoku.

She set her almost-empty glass on the bar and reached out to tap her fingers against the one he'd set in front of her, contemplating it and what the conversation would be should she drink it.

"There will be things I can't teach you, Hiei." She didn't look up at him as she spoke telepathically, her eyes instead remaining glued to the glass she idly turned in a circle. "There will be things I won't teach you. And there will be things that will be… delicate, likely uncomfortable."

His hand passed at the edge of her vision, wiping the bar down with a cloth. "And?"

"And I guarantee you there will be things you won't like. Where things like this are concerned, there is always something someone doesn't like."

"Then I will have learned."

"And I don't recommend such topics being talked about here, where your attention may be otherwise needed." She glanced up finally, looking through her lashes at the demon who still really had no expression on his face for her to read.

He finished wiping the surface of the bar and finally stood upright again, tossing that cloth over his shoulder and crossing his arms as he raised a brow at her. "Is that all?"

"Of the warnings? Yes. I wanted you to be aware what I'm offering may help you, and it may also be uncomfortable for you." She almost smiled. "And, at times, for me."

When he did not seem to immediately think it the worst idea, or even so much as hint at any sort of negativity, she finally lifted the glass he'd given her and downed it all in one go, accepting his request for more information. *

Shikiyoku smiled at the lightning and ice wolves that came through the door together as she made her way across the room in Raion's direction, and while at first it seemed like the two groups might convene and make their way over there together, Tsundora stopped dead in his tracks as Raitoningu kept going and the blue-eyed wolf pinned Shikiyoku in place with a seething cold stare that left her blinking at him with its intensity.

"What. Is. That." He said with poignant disgust as he came closer and poked her collar bone with a disdainful finger.

Limbs frozen in place, Shikiyoku didn't have a chance to leave even if she'd been able to move.

"What do you think it is, Tsun?" She replied calmly, looking up at him. His glare had not left her skin where Kurama's marking curled across it.

"I hate it."

Shikiyoku blinked at him again, the sentiment making something inside of her churn suddenly, overwhelmed with uncertainty about her choice, and at first she didn't notice the consternation on his face as he rubbed his finger vigorously over it several times like it was fake and he could get rid of it himself.

"Ow- Tsun- What're you- That hurts." Shikiyoku exclaimed suddenly as she twitched her shoulder violently away from him and out of the freeze he'd put her in and her skin suddenly went from a red to a white at the behest of the ice energy he'd quickly spread across parts of the mark.

He scoffed, deep frown across his brow, and turned away from her suddenly as she glared up at him and he moved to sit down next to Raiton, crossing his arms. 3

"Alright then, Sparky." She set the empty glass in front of him so he could set it with the other dirty dishes, and she lifted her earlier drink again, taking to swirling it around just as she had been before as she regarded him. "Here's the thing: you lack knowledge. Knowledge of flirting, and knowledge of…" She pursed her lips, "seduction, I suppose. But that particular route will not be my goal, because I am far different from you and Shikiyoku in how I feel things, so my experiences are likely to not help as much as I would want."

He plucked the empty glass from the bar and turned away. "Alright then."

"And unfortunately, I am not willing to show you by my own example, especially not around here, for reasons you may understand later, after you've learned a few things."

"Then how-"

"I'm not done." She pointed a finger at him from around her glass. "Instead, I have resources. Resources that are in my apartment, and in libraries, and-"

"Libraries."

"Yes. The places where books are kept."

"I'm not well versed in reading just yet."

She nodded, "Alright, then my apartment will be the best place to go, since you don't quite blend in with the human populace enough to be able to people-watch."

He turned to face her again, a line of glasses suddenly set up on the bar. "That's fine."

She raised a brow, genuinely surprised he did not argue about coming into her space. She wondered if his curiosity was that strong, or if maybe he'd enjoyed himself enough learning anything similar to what he'd just done might be well worth any sort of discomfort about things to come.

She also wondered if he truly understood discomfort was guaranteed.

"Your idea, you take the lead," he told her after a moment, still not looking up. "And it better be worth my time, dog."

Her lips stretched into a smile. "If it's not, then I guess I'll have to owe you for wasted time."

His eyes flashed at her. "You've got a deal. I hope you don't come to regret it."

"And I hope you don't." *

Shikiyoku craned her neck down trying to see what all he'd done, finally reaching up and rubbing at the side of it and feeling the deep chill for herself as she began moving again, the last of the wolf's stare melting away and letting her walk.

One of Raion's ears twitched and he smirked in Shikiyoku's direction as he turned to watch her coming towards him.

"Took you long enough, woman."

"Yeah, yeah."

He frowned at her hand still rubbing at her neck and narrowed his eyes in on the damage before turning on Tsundora as she came close enough to put the drink down near his elbow and move away again back towards her station.

"What did you do?"

The dark-haired wolf stuck his nose in the air, arms still crossed, "Didn't work. Why does it matter?"

"Because you gave her frostbite, you ass!"

"Deserves it."

"For what?"

Any addition to the argument suddenly stopped as behind them somewhere, they heard Shikiyoku slump to the floor.

...

"Hiei? What happened?" 3

Hiei leaned forward just a tad with a wicked gleam in his gaze, but something in the back of his awareness just tickled at him, asking for his attention just as he sensed some sort of something amiss with the energy he knew almost as well as his own.

He dropped everything and was gone from his station in an instant, seeming to disappear from one spot and reappear kneeling on the floor, his arms just barely moving around Shikiyoku before she hit the floor.

Expression blank, he took a moment to assess the situation, sensing for himself her side of the bond was still active, and while she still breathed, her eyes remained closed.

He scooped his arms under her and lifted her from the floor, aware of various people moving for him and he met the gaze of a waitress who had just entered the bar for her shift.

Remembering she was quite adept at this and that, he made sure to tell her the bar was in her care until he or Shikiyoku came to relieve her, and before she could even nod, he turned and swept his way through the door and up the stairs into the apartment.

Kurama's voice in his head might have been a surprise if he hadn't been expecting it, hadn't been waiting on the other to notice Shikiyoku's energy reacting strangely with, he assumed, Kurama's marking her.

"She fainted," he responded as he pushed the door to her room open and moved for her bed. "Her energy felt unstable for a split second before it happened, so I imagine that's what caused it." *

"...unstable...?" The fox felt thoughtful, if worried. "What was she doing when she collapsed? I'm coming as quickly as I can." 3

Hiei laid Shikiyoku out along her bed, made sure she would be comfortable, then began to check for all other symptoms of anything she might have. He pressed his hands to her face to gauge her temperature, opened one of her eyes to check the reaction of her pupil, and then listened for the rate at which her core beat, all while leaving telepathic communication with Kurama open enough so he got the sense Hiei was busy finding answers.

"She was making drinks in the bar," he responded almost idly, his hands still checking this place and that. "Delivering one to Raion when she fell."

He noticed the odd greenish undertones to Shikiyoku's pallor and frowned, and as he swept her hair away from where it had come to rest near her marked shoulder with the intent to double-check her pulse with his fingers, he noticed there was a pinkish line around the mark itself that stood out from the black lines of the marking and the not-right color of her skin.

"Her skin is discolored - a sort of green instead of her usual skin tone, and the mark has a pink line around it -, and her breathing is slow, and her core is beating entirely too slow," he relayed to the fox, knowing his having the symptoms would help narrow down ideas for what to fight off. *

The last thing she remembered was this strange, sludge-y sort of feeling swirling around her core like molasses that pulled at the effervescence Hiei had earlier excited, and then she was trying to open her eyes, squinting and drowsy and completely disoriented as she tried to actually sit up and could hardly make her arms move at all.

"Was she- ...Had she drank anything? Did someone hand her something?" Part of those symptoms sounded like poisoning, but others left Kurama baffled and dashing more quickly in the direction of the bar.

Shikiyoku mumbled out Hiei's name, but could hardly get her lips to form the word. 3

Hiei sat back on his heels and crossed his arms, his eyes coming closed as he thought about Shikiyoku's movements through the morning.

While his conversation with Akari had been distracting, he had no doubt in his response.

"Nothing more than the coffee Akari brought, and that was some time ago. It also smelled of her, so I doubt anyone else made those drinks but the dog herself."

The sound of some hum snapped his eyes open and he leaned back over Shikiyoku, his hand coming to rest over her forehead. "Can you move?"

(Use the bond to answer if you need to.)

"She's awake, Kurama." *

Shikiyoku's face twitched again as her lids slid open halfway and she felt her core give another sluggish beat as she tried to shift around some more.

The bond only really had her disorientation, confusion as to where she was, and a bit of the strange sensation of her head not quite feeling like it was attached to her body.

"I don't rightly know if that's better or worse. It could be poison, but without being there, I won't know for sure.

"Hiei, I'm halfway across the country, but I'll get there as fast as I can. If anything else changes, let me know." 3

Hiei frowned ever so slightly at Shikiyoku's lack of a response and, after acknowledging Kurama's response, he turned to look around the room for a moment, feeling a bit like he should be able to do something but not knowing what.

"Hey, don't move too much," he murmured down at Shikiyoku, giving her the slightest smile. "You fainted, so I brought you to bed. The bar is taken care of, and Kurama is on his way." *

"Mm, I what?"

Shikiyoku tried to look over in the direction she heard him speaking, finally able to feel her limbs again, or at least her arms, though they shook a little when she tried to get them under her.

"Hiei?" 3

Hiei lifted his hand from her forehead and instead rested it on her arm, unsure if he wanted to help her sit up or try to coax her into staying laid down. He considered the bond - filled with lots of confusion - and then, after a beat, decided that if it meant she could look at him and be able to focus on him, her sitting up may not be terrible.

"I'm here," he told her as he watched her, carefully supporting her movements enough so she could lean on him if she wanted, but not moving her for her so he could see her movements. "We're in your room." *

"Uh-" She blinked again and the room cleared a little, though none of her sluggishness had faded and she managed to sit up, though she clutched at Hiei once she did as if she didn't trust it.

In my...

"What happened?" 3

Hiei held her arm as she managed to get a grip of his, finally seeming to truly unfreeze as he moved to sit on the bed next to her, his other hand coming up to rest on top of the one she rested on his arm.

He waited a few moments, letting silence fill the room as he watched her, giving her some more time to become aware of her surroundings.

"How do you feel?" *

Shikiyoku rubbed a hand over her forehead, trying to grip tightly to Hiei with little success.

"Uh-" Her brow furrowed as she considered it. "Weird."

"Slow? Something...strange. Um. Are you okay?" She looked over at him, trying to focus on his face. 3

Her concern for him genuinely baffled him for a moment, and he couldn't help the tilt of his head in his confusion.

Me?

He blinked, then let out a breath.

"I'm fine. You collapsed, so you are who I am worried about." *

"Oh. Okay. Uhm." The hand that had been at her forehead rested in her lap and the one at Hiei's arm slipped away to rub at the mark on her neck.

She scooted towards him a bit like she meant to get up.

"Can I- Would you-" She blinked and her eyes widened a bit as another wave of disorientation swept over her. "I need to-"

"Tsun's mad at me." 3

Hiei lifted a hand to peel hers away from the irritated mark on her neck, twining his fingers with hers so that she wouldn't mess with it.

He waited patiently for her request, wondering if she needed water or something of that sort and, at her last statement, he tried not to let out a little breath.

"Well, that can wait, my Beloved." He traced his thumb over the back of her hand as she watched her expression, having caught the widening of her eyes and the unfocused glaze that fell over them. "Kurama is on his way, and if he arrived in time to see I let sickly you out of bed, I'd deserve the glare I would get." *

"But- I-" She blushed a little at the nickname. "I'm supposed to work."

Her gaze dropped to their hands as she went to try and lift it back up to her neck and found it otherwise occupied, completely aware of the yellow spark that danced over top of his thumb for a moment. 3

Hiei raised a brow at her.

"You won't be working until Kurama tells me it's safe for you to work," he murmured after a few moments, his eyes turning down to the little golden spark that came to life on her hand. "You're covered until then, and if the bar gets busy, I will help them. You have no business standing right now."

He trailed his thumb across the back of her hand again, this time seeing the sparkle and remembering similar ones that had popped up when he'd kissed her earlier. *

She scoffed at the mention of Kurama, muttering, "How's he supposed to know. Hiei, I'm fine, you-" She felt him move his thumb again as well as something stirring at her core as her ears pinked further.

She let out a huff and tried to ignore how she was perfectly aware her legs weren't likely to cooperate any time soon. 3

Hiei looked up and into her face again, his expression shifting as he leveled a stare onto her. He considered her for a moment, picking his words and thinking about how to go about this particular disagreement in a way that would end with his keeping her right where she was.

All the while, he purposely moved his thumb back and forth over her hand.

"You would collapse again," he finally said, his stare still locked onto her face. *

Her glare at him held no actual ire, and neither could she fight off the pink tinge to her cheeks and ears as he stared at her.

Finally she huffed again and turned her head away, pouting a little even as she absently drew her own thumb across his hand without realizing it.

"We said we would work." She mumbled. "I don't like not doing what I said I'd do." 3

Hiei's stare softened. "And we will, but only when you are able to."

He looked up and around the room, searching for a distraction that might get her mind off of it, that might ease her obvious discomfort, and after a beat, he turned and kissed her cheek.

His lips left her and he released her hand, and he was gone for barely even a second before he was situated next to her again, her hand in his so she wouldn't mess with the mark, and a book in his other hand. *

Shikiyoku flushed deeper for a moment as the sparkle across her cheek distracted her long enough from the desire to rub at her neck while he didn't have her hand that she didn't do so.

She sighed, still hunched over a little and glanced at him after he returned.

"You know you don't have to do this." She squeezed his hand so he'd know what she meant. "If you don't want to. I could just sit on it or something." 3

Hiei squeezed her hand back as his other hand dropped the book into his lap and he thumbed through the pages until, after a beat, he found where they had left off last.

"(I want to.)"

And he meant it. He wanted to hold her hand and sit with her, and if he was able, he would distract her.

And so, after a few beats, his eyes scanned the pages, and he picked up reading - or, attempting to read - from where he left off last. *

His response in the bond surprised her, both utilizing it and the truth of it, and she blushed again, feeling stupid for not being able to help the reaction.

She let the breath she'd built up in her cheeks out silently as his response deflated her.

She wasn't sure she could manage to lean back into the headboard and pillows without just dropping all the way to the mattress, and she almost leaned into Hiei, but wasn't quite sure if that was okay, so she swayed in his direction a bit like she meant to look over and watch the words, but turned her head away at the last second in case it would make him uncomfortable and settled on listening to him instead. 3

Hiei paused on a word to study it, his eyes seeing the kanji and finding it familiar, but for the life of him, he couldn't put it together.

In that moment, he became acutely aware of Shikiyoku's swaying beside him, and as his lips and tongue worked over the syllables, he listened to her movements.

"Her-get-to.." no, "To-get-her…" He frowned and tilted the book in her direction just after she'd turned away and, as if to get her attention, he leaned his shoulder into hers. "Shiki, what is this?" He pointed with their linked hands at the line and the kanji he specifically meant. *

His shoulder meeting hers sent a tingle up her spine and she turned her head his direction to see him lift her hand over with his, eyes following his indication.

"It's, you were close, it's 'together.'" She smiled a little and wanted to shift closer to him, but couldn't get much more than a small movement out of her thighs, much less the rest of her legs.

She meant to keep watching the line and ended up staring at the arm holding her hand and the black swirls curling around it where his sleeve had been shifted farther up for work.

If she could have reached it, she might have rested her chin over his shoulder, letting out a little sigh and trying to convince herself he wasn't too far away. 3

Hiei nodded and turned back down to the page, continuing to sound out the words from the novel even as he remained aware of her every move next to him. He thought about her weight against him, and how she had tried to move and yet gotten almost nowhere, and he wondered if she'd meant to lean completely into him.

Her sigh halted him mid-sentence and, after a moment of realizing she was distracting him and not the other way around as he'd been wanting, he turned to her with a watchful eye.

"Would you be more comfortable if I sat behind you so you can lean back, and still be able to read along with me?" *

She blinked down at his arm as he stopped, trying to quickly figure out where he'd been on the page, when she realized he was looking at her.

Tilting her head at him, she appeared confused, "Huh?" 3

Hiei's eyebrow twitched upwards just a little and a spark lit in his gaze.

He watched her for a moment before finally repeating, "Would you be more comfortable if I sat behind you? Like I did the other day." *

"Uh, n-no," She said quickly, "That's okay. I don't have to read along. I'm sorry. Was that bothering you? I can stop." She turned away like she'd done initially earlier and stared down at her other hand in her lap, fiddling with the end of her green blouse. 3

Hiei leveled the same stare on her as before, watching as she turned away from him. He didn't miss her free hand playing with her shirt either, and after a bit of staring, he let out a small breath.

"(You're allowed to tell me you want things, too.)"

He reached over and set the open book on her lap to keep the page and, after a kiss on her cheek like before, he shifted around and crawled over the bed until he finally settled behind her. He checked he would be able to lean back against the headboard comfortably before he circled his arms around her waist and tugged her closer, encouraging her to lean back against him as he stretched his legs out on either side of her.

"And you're not bothering me," he told her once they were settled. *

She almost looked up at him when he didn't start reading again, though his sentiment in the bond was met with a distinct negatory from her that didn't form any particular sort of argument before he nearly startled her with relinquishing the book to her lap.

The kiss left her skin glimmering briefly again as she actually sat up for once, suddenly unsure as to his intentions.

Oh- I- Hm.

He couldn't see her widened eyes, definitely certain this was much worse than being next to him and she didn't intend to fight leaning back into him, but it took more than one nudge for her to actually come to her senses enough to sort of do it.

Ugh, you're so warm.

She wanted to say something like 'well, you're bothering me,' but she definitely didn't quite mean it in the same context and kept her mouth shut. 3

Hiei ignored her negative response, not quite sure if she meant she wasn't supposed to want things or if she was protesting his moving around. Of course, when there were no other 'no' sensations between them, he'd continued doing as he had decided.

When she did finally lean back, he moved her hair so it fell over her shoulder like it had when she was working in the bar, and he squeezed the hand he still held before he lifted the book in his other hand so he could read it with her.

(Let me know if sitting up gets uncomfortable.) *

Shiki let out a sigh as she settled against him, glancing over at the long strands of hair he moved out of their way and wishing she could get her legs to cooperate.

They still felt like they were made of lead.

He'd never let go over her hand and now as he moved his thumb over her skin it was from across her body instead of next to her.

She glanced over to see his face appear over her shoulder as he lifted the book between them and before she could decide if she wanted to do anything about him being so close, her gaze darted away to try and see if she could make sense of any words for herself.

It wasn't the 'sitting up' that was uncomfortable. It was the being so surrounded by him and his warmth and all the different places they were touching, and sometimes the places where they weren't but were close, and-

Shiki hadn't even realized she'd lost his place again, staring at the tattoo on his other arm this time and following its curves. 3

Hiei paused in his reading long enough to glance down at the little sparkles happening at the edge of his vision, the glitters trailing around after his thumb.

He returned to the page again, and though he realized he read the same sentence aloud again, he continued on as if he'd meant to do that, reading one more sentence before glancing down at the glitters again.

He'd noticed them a lot as of late.

He blinked and turned back to his book, continuing to the next line. *

Shikiyoku sort of ended up following along, but she wasn't really so focused on the book in front of her as her eyes might have indicated.

Head tilted in the direction of the face nearby, she'd brought her free hand over beneath the one with her markings and didn't even realize she'd begun lightly tracing its curls at his wrist with her fingertips, and even when her ears twitched with the sound of the door to their apartments, she didn't actually stop.

The silver-haired form is who walked into the room, and Shikiyoku in any case made no move in any particular way, only staring at the other as he approached.

He came and sat on the edge of the bed next to them, frowning when he saw the strange coloration of the skin around his mark and looking her over to see places where she did indeed have a sort of greyish-green tinge to her skin.

His features twitched with amusement as he reached out tentatively to touch it near her collarbone.

"You could just let me finish, you know." He rumbled.

"My soul is no match for yours, fox."

"Nothing's changed?" He looked at Hiei. 3

Hiei was just giving up on keeping to the reading when the door to the bedroom opened, so it was only convenient timing for Hiei he lowered the book just as Kurama stepped into the room.

If he'd been asked, he might have felt obliged to admit he'd been too distracted to remember the kitsune was coming. Between the glitters on Shikiyoku's hand as his thumb moved across her skin even now and her own fingers tracing his skin, he'd all but lost where he was.

But as Kurama came to sit on the bed, he sat up a little straighter and set his mind straight again, a different task calling for his attention.

He let the two have their moment without interruption, finding himself oddly unsurprised by Shikiyoku's answer to Kurama's offer to complete the mark, yet still ever grateful to know he still had a chance.

When he was finally addressed, Hiei met Kurama's gaze evenly. "She's still weak, but she can move her arms now." He looked at her again as if to search her face before he turned back to the other. "She still can't move her legs, however, and she's more coherent than she was when she first woke." *

Kurama nodded, eyes keen on the mark for a moment longer, but tracing his fingers down her arm a ways and tilting his head a little before reaching up to take her chin and turn her face this way and that.

He paused for a moment with her gaze his direction and leveled a stare at her.

"I would have been up earlier, but I was having to reassure a certain wolf he hadn't killed you."

Shikiyoku suddenly couldn't meet his gaze.

"He told me what happened. Or at least part of it." He twisted her face back and forth one more time. "The rest I could guess at." He let out a breath and released her, then lowered his palm to the mark and rested it there for a moment. "I practically had to fight him off to keep him from following me up here. I'll let him know you're okay."

Shikiyoku gasped for a breath suddenly as she felt the thickness that had settled around her core suddenly leave and the mark under his touch felt like it was burning her.

"Sorry." He apologized and took his hand away before leaning into it on the bed and staring at the mark thoughtfully. "Hiei told me what you were doing when you dropped. I felt that halfway across the country." His gaze lifted to include the fire demon. "Had anything else happened since she got it?" 3

Hiei noticed Kurama's touch on Shikiyoku's skin this time, and what it did.

Or, rather, what it didn't do.

His thumb traced idly along her hand again, only having paused at Kurama's entry, and he saw the sparkles out of the corner of his vision, confirming that yes, she still sparkled.

Just not 'for' Kurama.

He tucked the information away for later so he could listen to the conversation, and as the fox mentioned Tsundora, Hiei had to take a moment to consider the bearing such a conversation would have on the current one.

He thought about the conversation he'd been having with Akari, specifically thinking about the moments when he'd stolen a glance up at Shikiyoku as she moved about. He remembered her talking with Tsundora - the look he'd had was not one he ever wore around the establishment, he remembered - and as he considered the memory of the wolf demon reaching for Shikiyoku, he remembered sensing the slightest blip of energy from the wolf.

He hadn't thought about it at that moment, having been so distracted by his conversation with Akari, but as Kurama turned to him and asked for more details, Hiei found himself giving a nod.

"Tsurara - one of the bartenders - poked at it with his ice as well." He nodded his head this way and that. "Not so much as Tsundora did, though." *

He made a thoughtful noise, then gave Shikiyoku a look, "Though I don't suppose you could have just not let them touch it."

"Tsun took me by surprise." She admitted. "Rooted me to the spot as soon as he saw it. I guess he was too drunk the night you gave it to me to have realized it was there? I didn't think he'd be so upset by it."

He let out a breath, "Well, I guess if it happens again, I'll know. We're certain of that much anyway. I'd better go back downstairs before ole blue-eyes decides to break down the door." 3

Hiei's expression remained unchanged as the others conversed about the mark, and with Kurama's dismissal toward what was obviously meant to be the end of the conversation, his eyes steadied on the fox demon.

For the first time, Hiei suspected the other was withholding information.

"Is it really so simple a thing as other energies interacting with it?" he asked before Kurama could even turn away. "If no one touches it, this doesn't happen again?" *

As if he'd been expecting further scrutiny, Kurama hadn't so much as moved from his place and he and Shikiyoku exchanged a brief look before he shrugged.

"I have no idea." His fingers tapped thoughtfully on the bedspread after a moment, looking Shikiyoku up and down again and noting her bare legs similarly had the greenish grey pallor. "I haven't actually been told all the details of what she's done since she's had that, so I have very little to make conjectures over. I don't exactly go around marking things all the time. Not like this. And it wasn't as if I was given a chance to test anything."

"Once or not at all, Yo-chan."

He nodded, "I felt testing on anything else would have been distasteful and that was the agreement we arrived upon. And I did not find fault with it at the time." He met Hiei's gaze again, "She wouldn't even consider marking me in return for that matter, so frankly I'm in just as new of a territory as either of you." 3

Fair, Hiei thought to himself as he considered Kurama's lack of experience in marking others. If the only mark Kurama and Shikiyoku had any sort of experience in was that of the Champion marking, then…

He almost sighed.

"She hasn't been doing much since the marking," Hiei finally said after a moment. "The night of, as I'm sure you remember, we sat with the guild until I carried her up here." He thought about the events of the evening. "Her energy was rather free-floating, and I certainly was no help in that department. If anything, I was a direct cause for its being so free after a certain point."

He frowned.

"I also burned her, but it was on the other side of her neck from the mark." He paused to consider his moving her to his bed, their sleep, and then his waking to stare at the mark and her stirring not long after.

"The next morning she was hung over, so we stayed up here, sitting like this," he gestured to them both, "because my natural warmth helps with muscle aches and tension."

He shifted just a little in place, moving his weight forward a little. "After that, today is the first day we've been up and around. We spent the last few days going over my readings and such, and while downstairs, the usual work-related things happened."

He blinked.

"Aside from Tsun and Tsurara, of course."

…

"And I did purposely stir her energy after Tsurara interacted with the mark too; I used my warmth again to rid her of the chill." As if suddenly reminded of this, his thumb moved back and forth over her hand. "And since she collapsed, I've been doing this." He held up their linked hands to show the little sparkles that came to life when his thumb moved.

My energy likely had just as much to do with it as Tsun and Tsurara. *

Kurama tried to make sense of all the evidence as it was being presented.

Sure, he'd been there the rest of the evening, he remembered thinking to himself how long it would be before Hiei sensed Shikiyoku to be in some sort of danger or another due to her energy floating around, but he wasn't entirely certain how exactly that worked between her and her Consort, and if it was even remotely the same.

The thought led him to consider the Champion marking he put on her all those years ago, but he placed it aside for the moment to take the rest of Hiei's information as the other gave it.

He raised his eyebrow at Hiei in regards to his having burned Shikiyoku, and on the neck at that, but said nothing, filing it away for amused consideration later as to what they might have been doing.

If Kurama's energy within her was reacting toxically to her system as he suspected, it was quite possible the effects it was having on her now had been postponed due to her drunkenness at the time. Which would suggest her own energy flowing so freely through her might keep what he'd injected into her veins diluted enough not to be a problem, assuming lower concentrations of it spread throughout was much less dangerous than high volumes of it shifting through her suddenly like perhaps Tsundora had accidentally caused.

In the midst of his thoughtfulness, Kurama had sat up a little, looking down at Shikiyoku's legs even if his ears were perked in Hiei's direction, and somewhere while the fire demon spoke, Kurama regarded her discolored skin and rested a hand on it like it might feel different than elsewhere, skating the tips of his fingers across it while his eyes grew farther away from their surroundings with spinning wheels and only looking up when he heard Hiei rustling around to hold up Shikiyoku's hand which the other had been holding, apparently, long before Kurama even entered the room.

One of his ears twitched back, stirred by his concentration as he stared at their entwined grasp and he suddenly looked back up at Hiei and blinked.

"How quickly after Tsurara did you interact with her?" 3

Hiei lowered his and Shikiyoku's hands back to her lap, his thumb now idly tracing along her skin as he considered the question posed.

"No more than a couple of minutes, I think." After a beat, he nodded, as if confirming with himself the timing of the events. *

Kurama had not looked away from him, feeling certain of both that answer and the one to his next question.

"And when Tsundora approached her: you did not do something similar?" 3

Hiei shook his head.

"No, I was preoccupied with conversation." He paused for a breath. "I was only vaguely aware of their interaction." *

Kurama looked to Shikiyoku as if wanting confirmation as to the last bits of information, and found her expression to be a carefully hidden mix of horror and uncertainty.

It wasn't that Shikiyoku didn't feel like part of the conversation, but given she couldn't actually remember very clearly the first several hours of being marked, having Hiei give a reply as to their going-ons seemed apt.

While it didn't reflect particularly on her face, as she processed Hiei's words, Shikiyoku felt herself slipping away from being able to objectively consider her actions and suddenly struck with something akin to fear in regards to how she couldn't remember what she'd been doing with Hiei.

He had been no help? Well, that happened often enough, but considering he was aware he hadn't been 'helping' came with no small amount of surprise. And the suggestion he'd been intentionally doing it this time?

She struggled to cobble together any memories she had, but even in trying she felt her core start to pick up the pace within her chest, seeing brief flashes like looking out over the rest of the bar from Hiei's shoulder and...was he...teasing her about something...on the stairs?

Her free hand shifted up silently at one point to brush her fingers against the place at her neck that had long-since healed, and while at the time when Hiei noticed it she'd been in too much other pain to really consider it, she genuinely hadn't given the affliction another thought, specifically she hadn't thought as to how she'd ended up with it.

She blinked several times as another convoluted memory swept across the planes of her mind and she felt her neck begin to heat up across her shoulders and down her torso as the impression of straddling Hiei's lap on...his couch?...and his hand at her neck as their lips moved across one another's and-

Hiei lifting their hands pulled her attention long enough to realize he had said something about purposefully stirring her energy, but she could only watch with the expression Kurama caught moments later as Hiei brushed his thumb across her skin and seemed to willfully summon the energy coursing through her hand into sparking between them.

It was here Kurama looked at her, when she stared down at the hand Hiei still had not let go of and watched from somewhere distant as the demon's thumb left a glittering shimmer across her skin like he always had.

Kurama kept his amusement to himself, moving his hand up and down Shikiyoku's shin as if to pull her from her reverie and gently call her attention back to the room.

"Well, that being the case, it might in fact be as simple as not allowing someone to send any energy over it. I suspect the foreign introduction of my demonic energy to her system without the proper conclusion has left it somewhat toxic." He nodded towards his marking, which by this point seemed at least a little less irritated than before. "It should be allowed to flow through her, if it's anything like our previous Champion bond, and if it isn't...?"

Shikiyoku blinked at him and shook her head, "It did right at first. And then it settled over here." She tilted her head in the marking's direction. "That felt familiar enough. But it didn't spread again after it finished forming the image. The next thing I can remember about it, it felt...heavy? I think?"

"Hungover." Kurama actually smiled a little and she nodded.

"It could definitely just have been the hangover." She grimaced at recalling how awful that had been. "I hadn't really considered it much since then? Been aware of it. Hard not to be. But only over here?" She absently let go of Hiei's hand to gesture in the area before rubbing at it. "I felt something strange after Tsundora messed with it, but then I was here." She looked back up at Kurama, "When you...moved it back? I could feel that. It had settled in this...thickness? On the other side, but I didn't know it had been there until it was gone." 3

Hiei listened to the exchange intently, taking Shikiyoku's information in and mulling it over with his own information and what Kurama offered, and he realized what had gotten his attention in the bar had been the bond itself, alerting him to either her coming loss of consciousness or the actual havok happening in her system.

Not knowing which it was almost made him frown, but he kept the expression to himself, knowing it would be his own discovery that only he could watch for. *

Kurama's gaze softened when she kept her hand over the mark and he shifted himself up further on the bed, hand moving across her skin until it reached her knee before lifting to take ahold of the one she held at her neck and resting it down on the quilt.

"Rubbing at it yourself isn't going to help anything, Yoku." His other hand lifted and he thoughtfully considered her features as he tucked a strand of her hair behind an ear and then lightly rested his fingertips near it where he scrutinized the unhealthy tinge of her skin again.

"Sorry." She blinked like she hadn't realized she'd been doing it and glanced at where he had her palm pinned between his and the bedspread.

He skated his hand back down to the mark and concentrated on his energy again before letting out a small huff.

"I don't suppose your legs are working yet?"

Her hips shifted at his inquiry and she made a face, scrunching her nose and making him smile a little.

"It's...moving." He pronounced, calling it back to his palm and seeing Shikiyoku's expression shift again as she felt him do it. His hand slid across her shoulder and then down her arm to circle the back of her hand and cup it between both of his, "I thought it might be on its own. I don't think you can feel it happening? Because it's so slow. The change is miniscule, not even a fraction of a fraction, but..." He glanced at Hiei now, "If it's also actively seeking to enter her system, that's a problem as well, if at least a slightly more long term one since it doesn't seem to be moving quickly." 3

Just as before, Hiei's eyes caught every movement of Kurama's hands, seeing how even still her energy did not so much as stir at the fox's touch. He searched for even a single spark, suspecting the other meant to specifically draw her energy forth to encourage it to interact with his own in a sort of defensive manner.

Kurama's mention of the energy moving drew Hiei's eyes back up to the fox demon, and as the other talked, Hiei's suspicion seemed to be confirmed.

"Well, if it's her energy that keeps this from happening, like we both suspect it is, then I suppose now is the time to put it to the test, since you're here to monitor your energy's movement in her."

He shifted around, moving pillows with him as he moved from behind her and put them in his place and, just before he moved completely out of her immediate reach, he placed a kiss in the center of her cheek.

(Tell me if anything hurts.)

He slid from the edge of the bed on her left side and moved to the end where he situated himself sitting at her feet, his mind becoming preoccupied for a brief instant of the time she had worked his own tired and sore muscles. He pulled her shoes away carefully and, after a moment of flexing his hands and fingers, he began to massage her muscles gently, starting with one foot and working his way up to her knee before going down toward her toes again.

As he did this, he dropped into the bond enough to almost sense his own touch against her as if it were happening to him, and he pulled back just enough to keep from having the strange feedback even as he worked. *

Kurama's eyes gleamed at Hiei as the other seemed to put together what Kurama himself had suspected.

The instances where Shikiyoku had not experienced adverse effects in relation to Kurama's demonic energy within her appeared in theory to coincide with the times Hiei himself had been stirring her energy.

But without testing it, Kurama couldn't be sure.

He had to admit to finding himself curious as to Hiei's intentions when the other slipped away from Shikiyoku to go sit down at the other end of the bed, and for a moment he twisted his head around to watch until he realized Shikiyoku didn't appear to notice her other hand reaching across her body to fiddle with the mark again.

"Dammit, woman, I told you to stop that." He said with mock irritation as he immediately got up and shoved Hiei's carefully placed pillows out of the way to take up residence where her Consort had been up until then, letting go of her hand and sliding behind her.

Situating himself so his knees were bent up on either side of her, shoes left on the floor, Kurama rested his elbows on the top of them and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, letting his chin come to lean into the top of her head from where he now embraced her from behind.

This effectively kept her arms pinned where she couldn't reach, though she almost immediately relaxed into him, leaned her cheek to the left against his arm, part of his long hair starting to cascade over the other side of her neck and obscure his marking from plain sight.

As Kurama watched Hiei massaging her legs, he definitely could smell her energy, even if he couldn't see the way it shimmered across her skin following Hiei's touch, and more so even than the position of his nose close to her hair naturally would result, and he kept sight of the other with great interest.

Shikiyoku started blushing as soon as Hiei began trying whatever it was he was wanting to try.

He'd certainly never touched her like this before, and even if it was with a more academic purpose, she couldn't deny either how much she enjoyed it.

Neither she nor Kurama seemed aware of the fact that, for example, Shikiyoku had lifted a hand up near her cheek to rest on Kurama's arm, and the other one had taken to slowly shifting across his skin, feathering various touches even as he did something similar to her exposed shoulder, weaving a hand through his hair to perhaps try and soothe the irritated skin of his mark in an unspoken apology of her discomfort.

Shikiyoku felt Hiei join her in their shared space, even move somewhat beyond it to leave himself behind, and her lips twitched with a smile in regards to the undeniability he found there in how much she liked his attention, (Sorry...)

(It, uh, it doesn't hurt exactly-) Her eyes glittered just a little, (-but oils would certainly make it a much more enjoyable experience if you're going to apply that much pressure.) Occasionally, he would do something that without them felt a little too much like a rug burn, though he was catching on quickly this joined to her how much he could do without any oils, and toe the line between how nice it felt and how awful it could feel in the bad way. 3

At Shikiyoku's response, he lightened his touch and sank just a little further into the bond, carefully aware of when he lost his surroundings to it and making sure to keep himself just aware enough that Kurama's voice could get his attention if needed.

(If you'd prefer I use them, I could try it,) he told her as his hands continued working at her muscles. (If it doesn't stop me from doing this,) he lingered a little in place to emphasize the sparkles that came to life there, (then I'll use them.)

He glanced up at her briefly, his hands still moving along her leg, the bond asking if that was what she wanted and, if so, where she kept them. *

Shikiyoku's eyes widened a little when she thought he might take her seriously about it, features turning a little more red as she quickly looked off to the side and couldn't meet his gaze when he glanced up at her.

(I don't think anything could stop you from doing that.) She grumbled, too entwined with him to keep it to herself.

(No, don't- Don't trouble yourself. It's not- I- I was joking.) Her cheeks were turning redder. 3

Her initial response earned a twitch of his lips, threatening a smile that moved more over the bond than it did on his features, warm and amused.

His eyes turned back down to his hands. Is that so?

He did give the smallest outward smile at her stammering. (Were you? I couldn't tell.)

Despite his half-teasing tone, he looked up to level a stare on her, his expression serious once more.

(Don't make me rifle through that head of yours for it.) *

The tiniest 'erk' simmered between them as Shikiyoku's blush reddened further down her neck and she stared with great interest at the quilt below her.

He did make her backtrack at least a little bit.

(I- I mean, I was being serious, but I-I don't think you need them. N- Not right now.) 3

Hiei continued to stare at her for a few more moments, watching the blush deepen across her face and neck as he considered her response, weighing the truthful ring of her 'I don't think you need them'.

He turned back down to lower her left leg to the bed and trade to her right, starting with her foot and beginning to work the muscles from the bottom of her foot all the way up to her knee, finding he could follow the muscles gently as if they guided him from one place to another.

(You don't think I should use them?) This time, he didn't look up. (It sounds like I should ask Kurama where you might usually store them.) *

Shikiyoku's eyes flickered over to him in a sudden glare, a mixture between them of 'don't you dare' and 'he wouldn't know anyway.'

(You're almost done, flameboy. There's no point.) 3

Hiei glanced up briefly and raised a brow in her direction, amused and somewhat surprised by the immediate response he received. He met her glare with a glittering stare.

After a brief second, he pulled himself far enough from the bond to let himself speak aloud, "Try to move your left leg for me." *

She felt him leaving her, but wasn't sure why and tensed like she would be able to do anything about anything he said.

Kurama blinked and lifted his gaze from Hiei's intent work to the red-eyed demon, unaware of the battle of wills happening between the other two.

Shikiyoku's face twitched a little as they stared at one another and she shifted her ankle around in a circle, flexing her foot and toes.

"Oh, it's working!" Kurama seemed glad, tilting his head as he watched her do so. He certainly could have gotten the same result, but unlike Hiei, it seemed, he would have had a much longer way about it. 3

Hiei's brows lowered over his eyes and he pressed his lips together ever so slightly, his eyes still trained steadily on her face as he caught the movement of her foot out of his peripheral vision.

His hands on her right leg paused for a brief moment as he considered her, but picked up their work almost as quickly as they had stopped.

"I'm glad," he said to the room just before dipping lower into the bond again, the suspicion behind his stare finally seeming to seep into their connection.

(...I bet you can't do it again.) *

If she didn't know better, Shikiyoku would have stuck her tongue out at him when he paused, still glaring at him through the shades of pink skittering across her face and the energy he was stirring in her legs.

Her eyes narrowed at their edges as this time she went to flex the ankle of the foot he was working on instead, her toes curling.

When Kurama bent over her shoulder to plant a kiss on her temple, she broke her glare, the eye his lips came near closing as he squeezed his arms around her shoulders.

"I'm thankful." He pulled back and looked down at her, pressing his palm more firmly to the mark on his skin, "It's at least keeping things in place for now. The movement was slow enough as it is...I'll come and check up on it tomorrow?" He looked between her and Hiei, "There were several days in a row where she had no trouble, yes? I can just make sure any stray bits stay centralized." His lips twitched as he leaned closer to Shikiyoku's ear again, and murmured, "Of course, you might not have any trouble at all if you were in your usual form."

"You don't know that." She eyed him peripherally.

He leaned away with a shrug, but said nothing else about it. 3

Hiei felt the muscles in her foot stretch and move as she curled her toes and he almost let out a breath of frustration as Kurama's voice pulled him slightly from the bond, though his hands didn't even pause against her skin, instead working further up her shin.

His stare remained on her face until Kurama leaned in to kiss her, at which point he turned back down to survey the movement of her muscles under his careful hands. He watched the glitters spring to life, renewed each time his skin brushed over areas he had already touched, and internally, he grumbled something to himself about 'stubbornness' and 'pride', though he fully acknowledged he had very little room to talk in such departments.

….Damn woman. *

Kurama let out a sigh, eyes dropping to her hair, before he lowered his cheek to it, taking a silent breath, "I suppose this will have to satisfy me for now, mm?" He planted a second kiss in the midst of it, long fingers briefly tangling themselves in its silky softness somewhere nearby as her scent moved across his awareness.

She gave a nod and Kurama started to pull even further from her.

"We agreed it would be too risky."

"At the time, yes. But that was then and this is now." Kurama's lips twitched.

"And you're not changing my mind."

"Mm. Or, rather, I should leave before I could." He slipped his feet back into his shoes and reached down to pull the heels of them up properly.

Shikiyoku scoffed, turning back to watch Hiei again, "Don't give yourself so much credit, fox. You barely fit into this room with us as it is. Get any more of that ego in here and I'll throw you out myself." 3

Hiei didn't really hear the conversation happening in the room, having dipped back into the bond so he could genuinely continue doing what he was doing in the hopes that she would be able to walk around and work down in the bar before the afternoon came.

As it was, he wasn't completely convinced her movements were not simply out of spite instead of actual progress.

The word 'out' caught his attention and the glaze that had settled over his gaze suddenly cleared and he looked up again, his eyes finding Kurama.

"On your way out, will you let the guild know that I plan for us to join them? No reason for Tsun to make a fuss and barge up here if we can come to him." *

Kurama gave Hiei a nod, "If that is what you wish." He smiled a little, "I imagine few barge up here on just any whim, but this would certainly be one you might have little control over at present."

His yellow eyes glanced back down at Shikiyoku and she blinked and gave him a sidelong glance, an eyebrow lifting his direction.

When he leaned back down over her, one of his hands came up between them as if to tip her face his direction, but his fingers never quite touched her chin as she moved at his silent request and he paused a few inches from her.

"Try not to die, mm?" He murmured at her, their jeweled gazes simmering at one another for a moment.

She let out a breath, "Don't get yourself killed, hear?" And reached over to wrap her fingers around the fabric just below where his shirt gaped in the front to jerk him closer for a kiss, releasing him after a beat so he could stand back up, the kitsune with a bit of tension behind his eyes as he forced himself to turn away from her and move for the door, and her gaze left him to fall back down to her legs. 3

Hiei almost turned down to his hands again, but a certain look passed over Shikiyoku's face in that moment when Kurama turned back to her and kept him from doing so. He watched as she seemed to register something unsaid between her and Kurama and, after a raise of her brow, the fire demon realized she was reading him, reading his desires.

The absolute openness between the two struck him in a way he hadn't ever felt before and, as Shiki pulled Kurama down to kiss her, Hiei lowered his gaze to his hands again, this time his eyes following the way the swirls on his left hand moved as his fingers did.

An ache radiated throughout his chest, starting beneath the little heart shaped marking over his core and seeming to follow the very swirls on his skin down to his fingers and toes, and for a brief moment he thought he recognized it from somewhere else.

He took in a short breath and centered himself, focusing in on the calf between his hands and the task at hand, finding within himself an intense want of that sort of relationship, that sort of openness between Shikiyoku and himself.

And yet he realized that in order to have such confidence in him, she would need to be able to read him as she so obviously could read Kurama.

And that thought sent another throbbing ache through his bones. *

With no one else in the room now, the only thing Shikiyoku had to do was watch Hiei move his hands over her leg.

She shifted in place a bit and glanced away, "Hiei, you...don't have to do this." 3

Hiei might have blinked at the voice that called his name if he hadn't already had his eyes half-closed. As it was, he didn't lift his gaze to see her eyes shifting away.

"No?" He raised a brow as if she might see it. "If I stop, it'll take you a while before you can walk again, hm?"

His hands reached her knee and he began to work his way back down.

"Stubborn." *

Without the distraction of Kurama, she could feel more insistently how his hands continued to make her energy shimmer along whichever part of her he touched and she didn't even realize she'd gone back to rubbing at her neck.

"No, I mean, I can feel that now. You can stop." 3

Hiei's side of the bond lifted with his light amusement, the emotion seeming to break through the heavier sort of silence that had threatened to settle over him in the moment.

"What? You mean this?" He poked the side of her leg briefly before immediately taking up his massaging again. "Is it you can feel it, or just that you're more aware of it now that Kurama is gone?" His lips twitched, threatening a teasing smile.

The sound of skin rubbing on skin drew his eyes up. "You're going to end up having to sit on them if you don't stop that, Shiki." *

"No, I-" Her cheeks puffed up a little as she tried to make a protest coherent. "I mean I can feel my legs now." Every bit of them. Energy everywhere.

She tensed and dropped her hand when she realized what she was doing, clasping the fingers of both together and dropping them in her lap to stare at them. 3

Hiei sat back, his hands briefly resting on her shin as if he might continue as he considered her for a moment, making sure her hands stayed in her lap for the time being.

"Can you move them?" he finally asked as he pulled his hand into his own lap and came to a rest at her feet."If I need to, I can massage a little longer." *

Her eyes widened again at his offer, but she didn't look up, "No, i-it's okay. You can stop. It's fine."

She let out a little breath, her knuckles turning white for a moment until she stared down at her hands and made them relax.

I don't know how much more of that I can take.

Even not touching her any longer, she could still feel her energy swirling in her limbs from his attentions. 3

Hiei watched her with a steady gaze, scrutinizing her.

(You didn't answer my question.)

He suddenly wondered if his telling her all of the things that were important to him - specifically, the things he wanted - in the bond would be enough to eventually foster the sort of openness and trust he realized he didn't have with her, but he shook off the thought long enough to allow a soft smile to win out over his usually stoic expression.

('It's fine' says the woman who tried to get out of bed to go work after having just fainted.) *

"I-"

Shikiyoku's gaze quickly fell off to the side again, noting his concern and feeling particularly called out by the same person she remembered falling flat on his face out of bed when he tried to go downstairs on his own after being attacked by the psuedo-Uryo.

"Just-" She reached out awkwardly, almost half-heartedly, between them like she didn't expect him to actually do anything she was about to request, "Come here and sit with me before I forget and start rubbing at my neck again. Please?" 3

After a few beats of staring, he let out a breath.

If she hadn't said 'please' I might have just picked up where I left off.

"Stubborn."

As she asked, he shuffled his way up the bed until he sat with her again, taking up residence right where he'd been the first time around and, just as he had before, he took her right hand in his left and finally settled behind her.

He rested his chin on her left shoulder and let his eyelids slide closed for a moment.

"How do you feel?" *

"If you keep saying it, I might believe you." She grumbled goodnaturedly, honestly a little surprised when he relented and moved to join her, and something of relief mixing with her emotions.

The lower part of her legs was bad enough and she didn't think he'd actually leave her alone if she asked.

Not that she wanted to ask.

But the thought of him doing anything to her thighs in the hopes of her being able to actually move her legs was a little bit much in a moment where he'd already stirred her up so much.

She tried to calm her poor racing core, his chin resting on her shoulder causing brief shimmers there, half-tempted to call Kurama back and knowing at the same time that was just as bad an idea, if not worse.

"Not as, uhm," She blinked, trying to clear out the bubbling of her energy from her thoughts, "Weighed down as before." 3

"Good. I'm glad."

He took in a long, slow breath, filling his nose with her scent enough that he cracked an eye open to spy some of her energy hanging around them and, satisfied for the moment it might do what he and Kurama hoped it would, he let his eyelid close again.

"I had no idea neither of you knew how this would work out," he admitted after a beat of silence. I should have asked for all of the details first. *

Shikiyoku tried to move her other arm to reach up and scratch at her face, but it was trapped beneath his and she just glanced down at it when it shifted but couldn't go anywhere.

She was quickly realizing having him here behind her might also be worse. At least when he was farther away he wasn't touching her quite this much, even though he was touching her a lot, and as he settled, she certainly could pick up on the cinnamon and cloves smell that always hung around him.

"I-I mean, it's not like we could have asked anyone." She seemed completely unaware the fingers of her 'trapped' arm had started to lightly brush against the inside of his. She made a face, "Demons don't do stupid stuff like this. Not even the crazy ones." 3

Hiei's lips stretched a little and the bond became tickled with his unaired laughter.

"So if even the 'crazy' ones don't commit to things of this nature, it makes me wonder how you should be classified for it." *

"I already told you-" She was making a face, though he couldn't exactly see it. "-I'm out of my goddamn mind." 3

"Hm." Knowing now they had no idea of any of the repercussions before tackling this adventure, Hiei couldn't quite bring himself to disagree. That didn't stop his brief chuckle, however.

He turned his head so he could rest his cheek on her shoulder, aware that doing so brought more sparkles to life between them, and he cracked an eye long enough to glance down at the hand tracing the swirls on his skin.

He watched long enough to appreciate the delicate finger brushing against him before he closed his eye again.

She hadn't ever done that before today.

"I like this," he murmured. *

Shikiyoku shifted in place a little, glancing over at Hiei's face and thinking perhaps he meant sitting with her like this.

She couldn't exactly disagree, especially not with her energy floating in the immediate air around her, though as she leaned over to plant a small kiss on the closest part of his face, her hand dropped away from him to rest in her lap once more and she turned her head back to the front.

It was fascinating hearing him say as much though. She wasn't particularly able to recall things very well in this moment, but she didn't think he'd ever said that about anything. 3

Shiki's kiss against his forehead surprised him just a little, and he found himself watching her profile as she turned forward again. Though, the second he was aware she no longer traced the mark on his arm, he gave her a little frown.

"You stopped." *

Shikiyoku blinked, her core shuddering a little as she realized she had no idea what he was talking about, but his tone made her pleasantly uncomfortable anyway.

She saw him staring at her out of the corner of her eye and blushed again.

"I'm...sorry?" What? "Did you...want...another one?" 3

Hiei raised a brow at her.

Another what? Another … kiss? "Well, yes, I always want another kiss," he told her with a slight twitch of his lips.

"But what I meant by 'you stopped' was this." He nodded his head a little in the direction of the hand not holding hers and he mimed her tracing his skin with his own finger, causing little sparkling, golden swirls to illuminate on her skin briefly in an imitation of his own dark ones. "...I was enjoying that."*

Yeah, it was definitely worse having him closer.

Whether she believed his initial assertion or not, she still went pink at the ears hearing him say it, and she watched with the same mixture of mock abject-horror and confusion as she had earlier when Kurama was in the room as Hiei demonstrated what he had meant.

Her eyes went wide and she started stammering an apology, "Oh my god, was I doing that to you? I-I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to-" She blinked, heart suddenly hammering in her chest as she tensed with the sort of fear she'd always had about how he might react if she slipped up and accidentally did something like that to him. She never had before, so maybe he wouldn't-

"I-"

She actually said the word aloud this time: "What?" 3

Hiei blinked, her reaction not one he had expected.

"What?"

'To' me?

"Why-"

He lifted his head from her shoulder so he could look at her properly, noticing for the first time the quick beating of her heart and the wideness of her eyes and the redness in her face.

"Wait, wait."

He took a calming breath.

"First of all, you have no reason to apologize."

(I liked it, Shiki.)

"Second of all-"

No, wait, I know the answer to that question.

"-I'm sorry you're afraid. I didn't mean to scare you."

He hugged her, hoping it would help reassure her. (I really did enjoy it.) *

Shikiyoku reached up and gently curled her fingers around his arms as he hugged her, still blinking and trying to process of all things, he wasn't mad at her, or leaving her, or-

"I-I'm sorry. I-I try not to, not to touch you, but I guess it's hard sometimes. I didn't want you to be upset with me, so I n-never did." The words all came out in a rush. "I'm sorry." 3

"Hey," He hugged her tighter, his fingers not twined with hers curling around the opposite shoulder as he pulled her closer in an attempt to calm her, because he really had no idea what else to do in the moment. (You don't have to apologize.)

He turned his head and kissed her cheek, mumbling against her as he did so, "I didn't mean to scare you, I'm sorry. I'm not upset or angry." (I just liked it, and want more of it.) *

Shikiyoku let out a huff of a laugh and covered her face with a hand, as she took another couple of breaths, smiling wryly, "You didn't scare me, Hiei." Though I'll grant you you've also never run a finger over my arm like that before.

"I just-" Another, larger breath and she still hadn't moved her hand away from her face.

"You know how I...told you I was...always afraid of pushing you away?" This is just as hard to say out loud as asking him a minute ago if he wanted another kiss was... Because she should have known if he wanted another kiss. Shouldn't have had to ask.

"That I...that reaching out to you is hard because I...was just for sure you'd up and leave me? Cuz I didn't know what you wanted? Don't...know...what you want..."

"I try not to touch you, Hiei. That's what I've been doing this whole time. Since I met you. Or...not doing, I guess." A fourth, tinier huff this time. "I'm...sorry, I didn't even realize I was..." She let out another bit of air. 3

Somewhere in the midst of her stammering out her explanation, Hiei began his quest to turn Shikiyoku so she would sit facing him. He adjusted his hold on her this way and that, all the while listening even as he kept one of her hands in his, knowing the other was occupied enough with covering her face that she wouldn't try to mess with the mark on her neck as he shuffled her around.

When he realized it might be easier for him to move instead, he paused his half-finished turning of her and shifted himself around instead, maneuvering around until he lifted one leg up and over her and, giving up, coming to sit slightly to her side with one leg around and behind her and the other resting across her thighs, frustrated with himself and instead pulling her into a sideways hug.

His left hand, still holding her right hand, took to drawing circles around on her right thigh, the motion a sort of substitute for the rubbing of her back that, for some reason, he didn't immediately pick up like he had the last time.

He took in a deep breath as if to steady them both.

"It's hard for you," he agreed, unable to not think about how easy it would be for her to just turn to Kurama, who was so very readable to her and so obviously open to her and-

"I know me saying you don't have to 'not do things' isn't as helpful as I want it to be, and I want nothing more than for you to feel comfortable doing things."

He frowned.

"...I didn't realize how hard for you it was until today, Shikiyoku. I'm sorry I don't know how to make it easier, or if me telling you these things in the bond will even help, no matter how much I hope it will." He kissed her cheek again, pulled away as if to continue, but ended up pressing them to her skin again.

I'm sorry. I don't know how to have that with you, or how to be that for you. *

By the time he'd begun speaking to her, she'd calmed back down.

As calm as she could be, anyway, with him still willingly touching her in places, his kisses sending scatterings of energy over her skin once more.

At least this time around it was making her smile a little as she rested against him, the sensation as much soothing as anything.

"I spent years avoiding...you. Unless it was necessary."

She had heard a distinct impression of the phrase, 'What does this mean, woman?' echoing from her memories.

"Hiei," She shifted her hand away from her face and moved to look him in the eyes, that hand coming down to rest against his chest where it always did just above her marking on him, "I want nothing more than for you to be happy. If I lost everything I've worked for today-the bar, my jobs, my name-none of it would matter to me as long as I knew you were happy. That's all I care about."

(You.) 3

Hiei pulled away from her cheek when she said his name, watching her with the same pang from before echoing throughout him, unsure really how or if he even should bring it up.

He hadn't genuinely doubted his position at her side before now, and while he wasn't exactly doubting her choice in him, he couldn't help but wonder why she'd chosen the person she couldn't read out of the grouping of demons she obviously could.

Her reiteration in the bond tugged his lips into a smile, and for a moment, he watched her, glad to see that she had calmed down.

(I am happy.)

And, even in the midst of his wishing she didn't have to guess with him and knew how to fix what had been a hindrance for her since day one of his knowing her, it was true.

(I'm happy when you are, and enjoy coming home to you.) He looked around the room. (Wherever that 'home' may be, as long as you're in it.)

He met her gaze again.

(And I'm happy when you do things like this,) he nodded his head down to the hand he held, (and this,) and then again to his own hand, still tracing random patterns on her thigh.

(...And this.)

He leaned in to kiss her. *

Shikiyoku's expression softened completely at his admission between them, like it held everything she'd ever hoped for, and her gaze dropped somewhat bashfully from his stare as he talked about her being home, still smiling and still pleased, if unable to meet his gaze at first.

Her eyes, lowered, spied their hands clasped together, his warmth more for her than just his temperature, and she watched somewhat ruefully as one of his fingers continued tracing those paradoxically aggravating yet soothing patterns stirring shimmering trails across her thigh.

She looked back up at him when he paused, and felt the strangest yet as his 'this' came across as completely clear to her what he meant to do in the next moment.

The hand at his chest twitched once as he kissed her and after a moment she relented and gave in to the impulse, lifting it from him and hesitating for a beat, but very softly bringing it up to rest against his cheek, shifting for a second against his warm skin before her palm settled on it. 3

Hiei smiled into the kiss as he felt her hand come to rest on his cheek, and after a few moments of enjoying the kiss and the warmth that came with it, he pulled back enough to meet her gaze again.

(And I enjoy this, too.)

His free hand reached up to hers and he twined his fingers through hers, briefly holding it against his face before lifting it from his cheek far enough to allow himself the space to turn and kiss her palm, much like he had some months ago when sitting in a chair, Shikiyoku having gone to Kurama to nurse him to health.

Reminded of the action, he repeated the same moment, kissing the pad of each finger before he flattened her hand against his cheek again.

(I want you to be happy, too.) *

Shikiyoku watched him fondly, perhaps not exactly remembering the gesture from him before herself, but appreciating it more now than she likely did then in any case.

The affection made her eyes start to swirl faintly yellow.

She shook her head at him.

(I've always cared much less about my own happiness, my love.) 3

He huffed out a little breath at her reply.

(Well, I'll care enough for the both of us, then.)

He pulled her in for another hug, this time wrapping himself around her almost as much as he could, the only exception being the hand twined with hers. *

She made a face when he couldn't see it, but relaxed into his embrace in any case, her hand coming down to curl between them up against her as she stared thoughtfully at his clothing.

(You really...didn't...mind?) She meant at his having 'caught' her touching his arm. 3

Turning his head to kiss the side of her temple, Hiei gave the slightest shake of his head and a squeeze of the hand in his.

(I didn't mind in the least, my Beloved. I really did enjoy it.) *

Her relief was palpable between them, but it was accompanied by a sort of long-reigning incredulity, despite the truth of it being completely bare.

(That's so weird to me. I...I always thought you hated that stuff.) 3

A sort of sigh resonated silently between them, holding with it a kind of resignation at his inability to change how he'd handled their pact up until more recent months. However, as he considered her statement - knowing in himself it was no surprise she, and likely everyone else, thought as much of him - he finally let his head fall to rest on her shoulder again.

(I… didn't know there were reasons people would want to touch me other than to kill me,) he admitted ruefully. (I knew what it meant to fight, to hate, and to kill. I did not know what it meant to be anything else.) His eyelids slid closed. (Or to feel anything else. ...Even now, I feel things I don't understand or know how to explain.) *

Part of Shikiyoku immediately considered how Hiei all but confirmed his not having been through his "hundred years," but at this point it was simply a reminder of a fact Shikiyoku already knew and had similarly remained unsure of ever actually occurring, should he, as she had mused in the past, take after his Koorime heritage.

Meanwhile, she nearly smiled to herself thinking about how her touch, especially before her need for a Consort, could do just about anything except kill someone else.

(Well...) She seemed thoughtful. (What do you know now?) 3

Hiei hummed thoughtfully.

(I know I love you.) He almost opened his eyes to see her reaction to that, but decided to continue on instead. (I know I am happy, with you and with the guild.) His lips twitched as he thought of the group downstairs, all likely trying to keep Tsun rooted to the table. (I know I have felt jealousy, even if I can't always decide if that's what I'm feeling. I at least know of fun,) his smile translated over the bond at that, (and I know where to find it.)

His thumb began to trace patterns over the top of her hand again.

(I know friendship.) He let out a breath of amusement. In you, and in many others, I've come to realize.

(I know I still have room to grow, too. And that I want to.) *

When did you start to grow up, My Consort?

She would have pulled away from him to watch his face as he 'spoke' to her, but stayed curled up against him and just listened.

You weren't like this when we started up the bar.

The last part was met with her amusement.

(Oh? You think so? Strange for a demon to admit as much. And wanting to? Even rarer still.) 3

Hiei nodded.

(I have learned many things, and realized even more in recent months.)

...In recent weeks.

He thought about the things he'd learned even over the last few days, from reading and writing to the mark on her neck, and even today, where he learned what their relationship could be like.

And he thought about what he hadn't yet learned, such as how to help her manage and maintain her energy, or even all of the details about what being a Lifemate meant, outside of the marking itself and the swapping of souls.

If it weren't for a nagging feeling he still had an incomplete picture, he might have mentioned his quest for such knowledge here. As it was, he decided against it, knowing he could learn even more still from others.

Like Akari, who offered her guidance with full disclosure there would be times neither of them would enjoy it.

Curiosity about what that meant flared, but he kept it to himself as he absently turned and kissed Shikiyoku.

(If I do not continue to learn and grow, then what sort of Consort could I be? Hardly seems like limiting myself is the wise choice.) *

She'd been all but smiling at him until he kissed her, the gesture once again throwing her off with the absence of her usual senses not informing her of its coming.

The 'knocked off balance' feeling associated with it accompanied her (Hmph.) between them even as she went on, growing more haughty as she went:

(Well, of course. I would expect nothing less from my Consort. Adaptability and openness to change are but two of your many qualifying qualities.) 3

Shikiyoku's reaction to his kiss earned a confused glance through half-open eyelids and a general sense of questioning between them, before he realized he'd had to turn his head to look up at her again after the kiss.

He hadn't genuinely been aware of his doing so.

He turned inward for a moment, as if he could recall all of the moments where he'd done something like that without actually thinking about it, without any other intent other than to simply do so.

He turned his eyes up to watch her again, this time more aware of himself in relation to her as she spoke.

He quirked a brow up at her, wondering if she'd picked up on his earlier questioning of her choosing him despite his lack of readability.

He watched her silently for a few moments before finally saying, (I am proud to be your Consort, my Beloved.) His eyes scanned her features briefly before he continued. (And I am ever glad you chose me.) *

Shikiyoku smiled as he admitted as much, a wash of absolute contentment and equal amounts of happiness shifting over their bond.

(Well...I suppose if you're asking how you can strive for my happiness for us both: that is something that more than satisfies any request I might come across on my own.)

There was a moment of hesitation, of a sort of shame at an admittance to follow, but a want to tell him, a fear of any response and yet a wish to share even this with him where a couple of weeks ago she might have kept it hidden to spare him, and herself, from an answer:

She blinked and opened her eyes, shifting to look at him, and whatever wisps of yellow there had been swirling in her gaze earlier during his affections was no longer present.

(I know you are...stuck with me, but it is difficult for me to not think perhaps there will come a time when you regret chasing after me that day. Where you will change your mind and wish you'd never done so.

...I am confident in many things, fire prince. I have my age and my experience to thank for that. But I am sorry to say I fear as you grow older and come into your own, you may wish you had chosen otherwise. That you may resent me for your lack of freedom. I want you to know I would not fault you for that. I would do anything to insure your happiness, even if it meant losing you in the process.)

Though the thought of losing him was accompanied with no small amount of ache, her assertion remained true. She would let him go with complete understanding if it came to it. 3

Hiei's own happiness at her reassuring him his wishes for her own was more than enough filtered through the bond, accompanied merrily by the smile of his lips and the gleam in his eye as he watched her.

As she shifted to look at him, however, the smile faded in the wake of his sensing her seriousness, and he raised his head from her shoulder so he could properly watch her as she told him of this fear, and yet reassured him should he ever decide to ask it of her, she would do whatever she could to 'grant' him his 'freedom'.

He studied her for a long moment, letting silence permeate the bond between them as he considered her fear and her selflessness regarding it and, not wanting to simply disregard her fear with a simple 'not happening,' he took the time to pick and choose his words.

(I have recently found many things can change in a short time, my Beloved,) he began, the bond quickly telling her he was in no way agreeing with her thoughts on his 'outgrowing her' or anything of the sort even as he continued to carefully piece together his response. (However, let me make this clear: I do not and will not regret chasing you.) His confidence in that was filled with his acknowledgement that she was the reason he was where he sat in that moment, that without her, he would not be the person sitting with her, or even close to the person he had turned out to be as a result of his time with her. The statement came simply as a fact, backed entirely in the knowledge that she chose him and he had never once questioned her judgement on it, even if he'd been curious about her choosing him when she could not read him.

And, once he was sure the sentiment had steeped itself in the bond and rooted firmly between them, he continued.

(Furthermore, I would die from stupidity long before ever asking you for such a thing. I would be a downright fool to walk away from the first person who ever cared for and believed in me, and not just my fighting abilities.) *

Shikiyoku blinked at him with the slightest head tilt of consideration in regards to his wanting to know why she chose him to begin with, though it was a blip in the moment of ruminating along all of his other responses and the emotions mixed in with the assertions he made to her.

She knew exactly where she would be had he not chased her down.

Dead.

And somehow the unwavering truth he felt about his own statement regarding his feelings as to doing so certainly felt amplified between them, for her a sense of being unaware until that moment how much he attributed his contentment at being next to her, having her in his arms, to her and her presence in his life, and in a welcoming way that whispered nothing of any sort of begrudging those changes she had been so directly involved in.

"That demon was not really living." She remembered him saying when she spoke of how his old self would not recognize him now.

She laughed out loud at his last little addition, and let go of his hand to throw her arms around his neck and hug him tightly, moving her face over his shoulder and pressing her cheek into his own.

The emotional responses swirling about the impressions of 'stupidity' and 'fool' tickled her in no uncertain terms, mixing quickly with an affirmation of her love and affection for him and something about how he was her 'favorite.'

(And I could not have chosen you in the first place if you were not worthy of being chosen, my Consort. Complete and total readability was apparently not a qualification.) After all, she had certainly in the past had moments of being able to read his desires, so he wasn't absolutely blank to her, only frustratingly so. (Much to my continuing chagrin.) Each statement, completely true, was tinged with a slight bit of teasing that grew and arrived in completion at the last bit. Accompanying it specifically was in fact a sort of overlying sense there was an awareness she had to the idea as a whole, but it remained hidden away from their connection, just beyond where they conversed, along with a distinct sense that if he truly wanted to know, he was going to have to come to her for it, to ask her why such a thing might have made him more qualified than anyone else who could have stepped into the role.

Because the impression it did was certainly there. 3

Her response almost surprised him were it not for the beginnings of those emotions slipping into his awareness in the split second before her embrace, and without hesitation, his arms circled around her middle as his own impressions of his love and adoration for her mirrored the similar feelings he could feel from her.

A sort of underlying pride at being her 'favorite' trickled across to her as well, hinting at not just his adoring her, but at his own thoughts about feeling 'honored' to be where he was.

He pressed his cheek against hers just as much as she pressed to his, meeting her happiness and love and giving just as much as she did, letting it ebb and flow freely between them as she continued on.

He almost chuckled at her last bit, if not for how her teasing, her taunting, took his attention away from his amusement and instead fostered within him a curiosity that almost had him pulling away again so he could scrutinize her expression.

The awareness she was inviting him to ask passed over his mind and their shared bond, accompanied with a similar sense of knowing he may or may not get an answer from her, yet recognizing it was perhaps that specific uncertainty that made it so tempting, so tantalizing.

A part of him wanted to say something to her about getting to the point, but another part of him, a newer, more recently changed part of him, recognized she had so rarely purposefully tempted him instead of simply withholding or telling him, and recognized he most definitely would not have noticed it before.

'Before' when, he wasn't sure.

Finally, after a few moments, he pulled away to look at her with a raised brow, all at once realizing he wasn't so far from her and a fully open connection with her as he had thought when seeing her react to Kurama's desire, and he let himself fully embrace the curiosity she enticed.

(And why, my Beloved, does such a thing seem to add to my qualifications instead of take away from them?) *

Shikiyoku moved with him when he did, releasing him enough to also shift and look into his face with all of the particular sort of calculations accompanying her teasing with the hidden implications settling across her expression, a certain smile including that yellowish gleam to her eyes where it curled and danced in places where it had been missing the last time she met his gaze.

The smile grew along the one side as he asked as their bond ruminated meditatively beneath his asking, and in truth Shikiyoku was in fact contemplating whether or not to tell him.

He had asked, certainly. But he could also ask again in the future, if she did not say. And that was equally as appealing, as always.

Her arms still loosely resting on his shoulders, one of her hands slipped up the back of his neck, but instead of burying her fingers into his hair, she curled them around the trinket she'd woven there and her eyes dropped to watch as she leaned her face closer to his like she might kiss him, but paused as her mouth came open with the idea she might instead speak between their closeness.

After a beat where she could have either kissed him or spoken and perhaps had not decided which, she finally murmured in the smallest of spaces she'd kept between them, "Why...do you think...Hiei...?" 3

Hiei reacted almost out of habit as she leaned in, and it wasn't until he recognized she had not actually kissed him, and maybe didn't intend to do so, that he realized he had closed his eyes and he opened them to stare at her, a spark lighting in his gaze alongside the notion he'd been wanting that kiss and it was definitely different she had not followed through.

He also recognized in doing so, or, technically, in not doing so, she'd almost completely distracted him from what he'd asked her, and as he met her gaze evenly, he found himself in a place oddly similar to where he'd been about her energy when he'd set her down on the stairs the night Kurama had marked her.

He could give in, or he could choose not to.

Her finally speaking aloud did bring his eyes briefly to her lips, but he just as quickly returned to her swirling gaze again.

"I think…"

He lifted his hand and reached as if to touch her neck just over the mark that darkened her skin, but, as she did with him, he instead turned his hand away and instead he adjusted the strap of her blouse that had almost fallen from her shoulder during his moving her around before, righting it in place again before his hand fell to the bed beside her thigh.

"...I think sometimes… not knowing isn't as bad as you think it is." He lowered his gaze to the mark on her again, remembering her reaction when he'd surprised her at his entry after its making, and realizing in this moment he likely hadn't been the only one who liked it.

He lifted his gaze to hers again, the same spark from before momentarily coming to life somewhere to his right. *

Shikiyoku's eyebrows lifted in the moment Hiei's desire for the kiss she withheld from him resonated through her, but in contrast to the last time she had any notion as to what he wanted-when she'd been too taken aback by the sensation where he almost kissed her anyway when Kurama barged in on them before bringing them to his meadow-the shiver of her energy inside her veins that sang to her at his behest came as no genuine surprise to her in an intimate moment like this where others would have had a similar reaction, and had, in fact, had a similar reaction to her as he did now.

The places where his fingers even barely brushed against her shoulder still gave off a brief glittering.

"Is that so?" She replied, the brief flash of his energy sending light dancing across her features as she appeared to ignore it, or in any case did not react, shifting the trinket back and forth between her fingers twice more before stilling her hand.

She made a thoughtful sort of noise, letting go of the bauble and still not looking at him, watching the path of her fingers as they skated once along the skin at the side of his neck before leaving it, her eyes tracking their movement as they followed the line of his jaw and then back down the front of his neck, but did not touch him again, leaving him, as it were, 'not knowing,' directly anyway, where she might come back in contact with him as she let her gaze move slowly up along the swirls at the left side of his face and not looking him in the eye again.

"If not knowing isn't bad, then I guess you don't mind it." 3

"Mm," came Hiei's hummed, sort-of agreement to her original reply as he watched her expression, noting with a very keen awareness of where her hand was, where her fingers touched, and where her fingers inevitably left him.

He only partially wanted to continue miming her, the rest of him all but screaming at him he still most definitely wanted the kiss she had denied him before, though he kept himself sitting just as still as he could be.

Though, to say that he was any sort of 'still' would be a lie.

As he thought about maybe reaching out to quite literally mime her movements with his own hand, his fingers twitched against the blanket beneath them. As he watched her expression, he found himself leaning just a tick closer in anticipation of giving in. As he kept himself sitting near her, a part of him wanted to wrap himself around her as he had been before, and more than once he almost lifted his arms to hug her again.

Her reply, finally, almost made him laugh, and the bond most definitely told her of his amusement.

"Touché," he murmured into the space between them, still weighing his options about continuing to ask her or simply giving in to the distraction she was so intent upon.

He knew he would not win this particular battle of wills.

He didn't have the experience or patience to do so.

He lifted his hand again and hovered the back of his fingers just away from her cheek before finally caving and saying, quite simply, "I want you to kiss me now." *

Shikiyoku shifted closer to him until even their chests weren't quite touching one another, and as he didn't touch her cheek, the fingers that had been earlier hovering over his neck found his forearm on that same left side with his markings and began very slowly sliding down it until she had her hand curled over his skin and smoothing it along towards his wrist.

"Oh?" She asked as it happened, the intoned word leaving a single delicate brush of breath across his face, her eyebrows lifting again just like they had when she felt the desire earlier. (And if I didn't already know that...?) In their bond, her meaning was quite clear: how was he to ask her when she didn't know? 3

It really wasn't a long wait for her response, but it definitely felt like time stretched on and on as her hand smoothed down his arm, and he almost frowned at her, though he didn't so much as move.

His hand remained hovering near her cheek, waiting.

And her prompting in the bond elicited a sort of 'oh' from him, and he stared at her for a long moment as he seemed to fall into the bond again, only going far enough to allow him the ability to convey just how much he meant what he said, (I want you to kiss me.) He paused as if considering her and, in a gentle sort of asking that left the implication she could deny him if she genuinely wanted to, he added, (Right now.) *

She hadn't meant to discover it, but at her prompting, and his acquiescence, Shikiyoku found out just exactly how similar his earlier desire and his request between them felt to her.

One gave an outward reaction she was used to, if not specifically from him. But inwardly, the sentiment that had earlier pulsed across her energy mingling between them in the air felt as much the same when he put it to 'words' in their bond.

If he was looking for it, he would spy the moment where he 'said' as much and Shikiyoku suddenly pulled her lips into her mouth for a moment, an outward indication of her own that perhaps she was not as immune to the sorts of tactics she was employing as her actions thus far might suggest.

With Hiei, she'd been struggling ever since his desire washed over her initially, innately coming to want to fulfill that which she so rarely had opportunity to do on her own.

His tacked-on 'right now,' made her release a breath of amusement.

She'd been wanting it just as long as he.

And so, in an effort to satisfy them both and with a confidence the situation allowed, instead of giving him any sort of coherent answer, she tipped her head in his direction and briefly pressed her lips to the edge of his mouth before retreating and doing the same thing to a different spot further along them as the hand at his arm came back up and slipped just beneath his sleeve to curl around it. 3

He had been indeed watching, and a sort of satisfaction, and maybe even relief, surged through him when her expression changed just a little to indicate her knowing the authenticity of his request, even if he genuinely hadn't thought she wouldn't believe him.

He had no doubt in his mind of his request through the bond being enough to make up for his lack of readable desires any longer, and he found his eyelids closing a second time as she leaned in to kiss the edge of his mouth.

The sigh he breathed out had hints of both frustration and content, the kiss not being exactly what he'd wanted and yet still enjoying and appreciating it.

At the last, his fingers brushed briefly against her cheek before he uncurled them and rested his palm there, his thumb taking up similar motions to what he'd been tracing against her hand earlier in the day.

He didn't not like this kiss. In fact, he even made a point to mimic her, kissing the edge of her mouth once before retreating to let her resume what she was doing, all the while taking careful note of her actions and filing them away under 'things to ask for later'.

And her hand under his shirt sleeve reminded him, however briefly, she never had resumed her tracing of his markings, though that too was filed away for the time being as he made a point to kiss her again, a quick peck before he settled into enjoying the kisses she gave him. *

Hiei responding to her kisses by returning them might have been worse in another moment where her energy wasn't already swirling through her, prickling at her scalp and behind her eyelids.

As it was, when her other hand came up to his neck and slipped beneath the collar of his shirt to rest at the edge of his shoulder, she got this very distant impression across her mind about doing so 'Because it's VERY imPORTANT' even if she wasn't quite sure where exactly it came from.

And after Hiei kissed her the second time, she went ahead and slanted her mouth over his and kissed him like he, like they, had been wanting her to. 3

Enjoying her short kisses as he was, a part of him thought briefly about the last time they'd sat together and kissed like this, and a sort of understanding fell over him about Shikiyoku's struggling to describe 'making out' to him, remembering she fumbled for an explanation he hadn't really been patient enough to ask for elaboration on.

As she finally gave in and relented to the kiss he'd asked for, he wondered briefly if this had been closer to what she meant by 'more of it', instead meaning more 'types' of kisses and not just simply more of the same one.

Her hand sliding under his collar was familiar enough that he felt prompted to also find more of her skin to touch, finding in this moment he wanted to, and his right hand lifted far enough from the bed to come to rest along the outside of her left thigh, partly because he hadn't massaged there before but mostly because it was the closest part of her he could reach as he deepened the kiss ever so slightly. *

Shikiyoku finally shifted closer again, somewhere aware of Hiei reaching out to her and responding by closing any other distance between them that she could, the hand near his shoulder pulling him towards her as if in par for the course with them, he was too far away.

Her hair rustled around her back and shoulders as she moved, the energy still mostly locked away in her limbs, or otherwise encouraged out of them into a light sort of misty aura by Hiei's earlier attentions, beginning to perfume more between them, seeking to curl, much like her hand with his arm, around Hiei more completely.

Shikiyoku in this moment would certainly not recall it specifically, but the manner in which she gently parted the seam of his lips with her tongue as if asking permission inside was in much the same way as she had many moons ago when the fire demon had won the favor from Raion, but in this instance it was not to feed him a shot she had not swallowed, but to unwittingly replicate a moment long ago dared at Mukuro's that at the time had left him quite stunned and her quite satisfied. 3

Hiei most definitely followed the tug of Shikiyoku's hand and finally leaned into her until he was flush against her, his hand at her cheek slowly sliding away from her face and trailing along the shape of her neck until almost randomly seeming to pause in place, coming to rest just above the place where her neck met her shoulder as he responded to her gentle request as if she had kissed him this way many times before.

His confidence in his realizing it was what she wanted, and he would enjoy it given the last time he'd been in a similar position, led him to almost encouraging her as his hand moved again, making as if to trail back up her neck and to her cheek.

He didn't think about it this time, and he didn't stop to wonder at its meaning or significance like he might have in the past.

And perhaps it was because he left himself so open to it he was able to discover just how wonderful the skin under his hand was, and her lips against his, and their closeness, and-

He felt the odd pull of his core this time, and just as quickly as he had opened himself to all of the experiences Shikiyoku was giving him, he all but ripped away from them as his energy flared about the room.

His first instinct - perhaps more in tune with his position as her Consort than as simply himself just then - was to immediately lift his left hand away from her neck, and subsequently, Kurama's mark on her skin, while simultaneously retreating from the kiss - muttering a curse for his out of control energy - so he could survey the mark for any sort of reaction to his energy.

In the next instant his relief at seeing no immediate damage to that part of her skin other than a faint redness from the excess warmth, he realized he hadn't removed his other hand from her thigh, and he all but threw both hands palm-out to find a definitive red hand-print on her thigh.

"Shit- Shiki, I'm- dammit- sorry it happened again-" he let out a frustrated breath, unaware that another little flame spouted to life as if to accentuate his self-imposed irritation. "Are you okay?" *

Hiei pulling away from her was met with Shiki following after him within the breath where she didn't realize what was going on, but knew for certain they had both been enjoying it, even though his lips had begun to grow hotter against hers.

The fluctuation of his energy answered any question she might have had about it and her eyes grew wide as he lifted his hand from the side of her with Kurama's marking, her own knee-jerk response flooding between them in an apology of her own as she assumed maybe she'd gone too far.

Feeling a sort of pain at her leg, she didn't immediately pay attention to it and instead asked his question aloud at the same time as he, her hands moving to his cheeks where his skin still felt a little warmer than usual as she searched his eyes for her answer.

"Are you okay?" She blinked at him and realized he had also apologized, albeit aloud, as she registered what she thought was irritation on his features coupled with a small fwoosh of fire near his head before they'd spoken together.

Shiki tilted her head and gave him a crooked grin as she realized perhaps 'too far' had a different sort of context in this instance, eyes still sparkling with energy.

"Just like a little candle, you are, eh?" She smoothed her thumbs back and forth over his cheeks as if trying to soothe him and had shifted her legs beneath her to sit back on them in front of him before leaning forward and hiding her cheeky expression from him by lowering her right hand down his neck so she could bring her lips together just below his ear at the back of his jawline. 3

He frowned at Shiki when he realized she'd apologized and then just as quickly had asked him if he was okay, scrutinizing her for the moment, at first not sure if he should gripe so quickly about how much he'd been enjoying that and how it seemed more often of late any moment he might have with her was interrupted, even by his own energy, and- and-

He crossed his legs and planted his hands on his ankles, feeling even there how his energy continued to radiate around him, moving more quickly to his fingertips than to his toes.

Another little ember flashed to life, but just as quickly died out as he closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath to steady himself.

He wanted to kiss her again.

But he didn't know if his energy would act against Kurama's like the other energies she'd interacted with that day had, and-

He drew another calming breath.

"I'm fine," he finally responded, his tone even.

He heard her moving around, but did not see how she shifted closer, or how her eyes gleamed, or how she grinned. He didn't really and truly know she was coming closer until she spoke, and he realized her hands had found his face as the feeling of her thumbs moving over his skin tested his resolve to sit still.

Not to mention he knew where he'd heard that line before.

Woman….

Her kiss had him cracking an eye open, and he cut it in her direction as if he could actually see her face, not noticing the little flame that fizzled on the other side of his head before it went out, the only evidence of its having existed being the smoke that danced toward the ceiling.

He knew she was being intentional. He knew she knew he had been enjoying her as much as she had been enjoying him, and her following after when he'd broken away definitely was a first.

The bond bubbled with his irritation with himself, and with it came another spark.

"You didn't answer my question," he grumbled at her. *

Her thoughtful hum against him as she kissed him on his ear this time was followed by her only leaving him far enough to say, "What question was that?" before she pressed her lips just in front of his ear near his jaw again. 3