As soon as they were both awake and aware of each other's state, Kurama drove to her rented room and help her gather her things. There was a building built as a dorm for the university many years ago, where people eventually began to live and build bathrooms inside the individual rooms so they could call those 'apartments'. Those weren't exactly his definition of comfortable living, and that side of town was barely safe, which made him glad that he could help her out of this situation.
The girl welcomed him inside. Despite the condition of the building, her 'apartment' was clean. It smelled of cigarettes and herbs, and everything seemed to know its place, despite the space being so small. The furniture had been thought so that it would make use of every square inch, but what made the place feel livable were the plants.
Kurama noticed six relatively small pots. In one of them, there was a fragile-looking vine with small leaves. It had a couple of red streaks on its stem, but not enough for the pink variety. At the same time, he noticed white and yellowish-green streaks on the back of the leaves.
"This is a hybrid..."
Taking a break from packing, Amara looked over his shoulder. "I don't know. I took a cutting from the honeysuckle growing on my grandmother's wall."
Kurama nodded slowly. Just then, the plant began to react to his energy and about five little flowers appeared on the stem he had been holding. They were an odd combination of two or three colors: white with yellow streaks, pink with white edges, yellow with a subtle blush. A rush of panic crossed his spine as he glanced behind him.
So far, it seemed like Amara hadn't noticed the change. Perhaps she was too busy going through her clothes and papers, but as long as she didn't suspect anything, he wasn't going to complain.
What he didn't know was that Amara had noticed the change, but she was pretending otherwise. It seemed they both had their secrets, though this didn't answer her one question... Amara's weapon had activated through the night, only for a brief moment, as demonic energy woke her up and vanished a few minutes later. Did that have anything to do with her honeysuckle blooming all of a sudden, or with Keiko recommending Minamino Shuichi for helping her out on her plant research?
"Alright, I think that's it!" The girl had placed two suitcases by the door and a shopping bag. "I've only got the plants left."
"Let's take them to the car. We'll come back for that yucca you've been telling me about, alright?"
With a nod of her head, they each picked up as much as they could carry down the stairs and loaded Kurama's car. After that, Amara knocked on the door of her neighbor and asked for the plant. In truth, Kurama was curious about what she had called a 'truly gigantic monster plant', but it was only an old Yucca that hadn't been pruned in a while and had grown a little past its usual size. The two of them were able to fit it in the back with a little bit of a struggle, and then finally into Kurama's apartment.
Just as Amara opened the door to Kurama's bedroom, a flash of demonic energy made her weapon activate once again. The seal keeping it in place tore around the edges, as she felt the needles struggle against her skin, but before she could react it was gone.
Kurama noticed that her hand had frozen on the door handle. He had to find Hiei and talk to him, warn him about Amara living there.
"Is everything alright?"
The Italian nodded slowly. "Mmhm... I just got this feeling that I might have forgotten something. Sorry, my mind is playing tricks on me."
"Don't worry. If you need it, we can go back anytime. Have you talked to your landlord?"
Noticing a quick escape from the situation, Amara slapped her forehead. "Ah! That's what I forgot! I'll call in a minute. So, then, if you can make some space for my things in the wardrobe... I mean, I won't look through your things, but I need a place for mine."
Kurama placed a hand on her shoulder and the other over hers, opening the door. Of course, the window Hiei usually used was spread widely.
"I appreciate it. I'm going to free up the right half, is that alright?"
"Looks like enough," the girl chuckled. "I'll be outside for a smoke if you don't mind. I need a break."
"Ah, you smoke? I thought I sensed something before."
Amara shrugged, already on her way towards the living room's balcony. "Bad habit. Now it's only occasional, but I used to smoke a pack a day."
"Can't say I support that habit," Kurama continued their discussion. The doors were open between them and they could hear each other with ease.
The girl leaned with her elbows against the railway and lit up a cigarette. She didn't lie about it - smoking calmed her down.
"I've cut down on them a lot."
Her hand slipped over her weapon, neatly strapped to her outer thigh, underneath her black jeans. It was a set of two needles, a little longer than her palms when not active, but quite long and difficult to hide when ready for battle. They enhanced her spiritual awareness and were connected to her on a deep energetic level, to the point where her weapon felt more like a partner than anything else.
After moving some of his clothes, Kurama joined her on the balcony.
"Maybe you could try to quit."
She shrugged. "They remind me of someone. I don't think I'll ever quit completely, but I can go on for months without smoking sometimes."
"May I ask who?" He approached the railway and looked over the unfolding image of the city's busiest arteries.
"My father. He smokes a lot, two packs a day when life's rough, one pack when it's light."
"That's far from healthy."
A thought crossed her mind and Amara smiled bitterly for a moment. "I suppose..."
It was obvious she didn't want to continue on the subject, so Kurama changed it.
"I'll go buy some more pots if you want to join me."
"Just pots?" she asked as she put out the butt of the cigarette and threw it into the wind.
"Pots and soil, fertilizer, and whatever else I might find interesting. Do you have any plans for the honeysuckle? It needs some kind of support and I'm out of hanging baskets."
Amara gave him a thankful smile. "Sure! Sounds great to me. By the way, have you ever had Italian food?"
The red-head returned her smile. "I doubt that I had."
"Let me look through your kitchen then. I'm sure I can make some quick pasta, at least."
After she stepped back inside the apartment, Kurama saw Hiei in the corner of his eye, standing on the rooftop of the next block. He needed to explain this whole living together situation to him... Hiei couldn't come around as often as he used to.
"Just a small problem, though. I don't think I have pasta, and by that, I mean I am quite sure."
"I brought some from my other place. There's an Italian store not too far from the university's main building."
Kurama followed her into the kitchen. "Really? I never noticed it."
"Yes - on a side street, past the liqueur store, and to the left. They import wine too, among many other things, and Italian cheeses."
Outside, moving from one building to the next, a dark figure was fading away in the blink of an eye. It had been three years since he had been freed of his duty of hunting down humans who reach the Demon world and safely return them home, yet he remained at the border between the two worlds. Kurama had chosen the Human world, while Mukuro was uninterested in it. Those were his main reasons for staying in between.
Well, those two and his sister. Hiei arrived at Genkai's temple in the afternoon and saw Yukina making dinner through an open window. This time, he managed to hide his presence from her, but not from Genkai.
"What's up, Hiei?" the old woman asked from underneath the tree in which he was seated.
Hiei threw her a look. "Nothing."
"You're here earlier than usual. Is Kurama alright?"
"Hmph! What makes you think I'd know?!"
A sly grin appeared on Genkai's face. "So I was right - something did change, and it's bothering you."
Later that evening, after getting their hands dirty and repotting about twenty plants, cleaning dying leaves and pruning, it was finally time to kick back and call it a day. Amara took a pillow from the couch and sat in a corner beside a baby palm and a giant monstera that had taken over that part of the room.
"How do you have such plants?" she asked, looking at the foliage above.
Kurama was just returning to their shared space with two cups of tea.
"Most are very easy to keep. They might seem like a lot of work, but late winter to early spring is when most of the hard work happens."
"That's not what I mean. This monstera's main stem is as thick as my forearm! I bet it's quite old, right? So did you get most of these plants as apart of family heritage, or spend a load of money on them?"
He sat beside her and offered her one cup, which she gladly accepted. That was a tricky question. Most people didn't have so many plants in their homes and if she ever met his mother by any chance, she would go on talking about him being the only plant-lover in their lineage. Well, everyone loved plants, but not to that extent.
"I honestly don't remember where I've got each plant... Some I found in the paper - people moved and couldn't take the plants with them, so they were either cheap or free. I've got many as gifts or cuttings, I've stolen a few of these cuttings... They seem to be growing very quickly inside my house."
The girl smiled in amusement.
"I've stolen a few cuttings too. Is it just me, or do stolen plants seem to root faster?"
"There's no scientific evidence to this..."
"I know. But they do, right? Tell me you've noticed."
Kurama had to nod his head in defeat. He had noticed this many times, although when he tried to research it, he found nothing conclusive.
"You're really good with plants... I'm kind of jealous, you know?" she chuckled. "For some reason, I can't keep begonias alive. I think I've had six or seven, and they all died on me."
"Begonias aren't that difficult... You just need to create the right conditions, be careful with humidity, and light, and how often you water them... Alright, they are a bit demanding."
"A bit more, if you ask me!" the girl laughed. "I love my honeysuckle. It doesn't care about the soil, it's happy by any window, it doesn't mind too much water and it won't start dying if I skip a day or two of watering. Pothos are pretty much the same, minus the flowers."
"Correct, though you can't go for anything easier than those."
"And that wall of yours, that vertical jungle thing...! I just love it!"
That was the very first statement piece that drew her attention when Kurama first invited her into the apartment. On a frame with soil and occasional wooden branches was an impressive number of vines, mosses, orchids, carnivorous plants, and some leafy beauties Amara couldn't identify.
"That was a personal project a few years ago, a way to deal with stress."
"What happened then?"
Kurama hesitated for a second. He couldn't say that Yomi had tried to blackmail him into an alliance using the life of his mother.
"Nothing too major, don't worry - just the admission exams, and my mother remarried... I organized their wedding by day and studied by night."
"And created a vertical jungle in between?"
"Yes, in the one or two hours I had after an exam, before joining the preparations again."
"I would have been too tired for side-projects," Amara noted, just as something managed to catch her attention. "What's that?"
Kurama followed her eyes to the pot of the monstera and found an odd growth looking much like a sharpened egg in a paler green than the rest of the plant.
"It's going to bloom and bear fruit."
The girl turned on her side and drew herself closer. "I've never seen a monstera in bloom! I didn't even know they do!"
Her curiosity was amusing to Kurama. "Most office plants do..."
"Is it edible? The fruit."
"With a lot of precaution, yes, it can be. The name of the plant means 'delicious monster', which is quite accurate. If unripe, the fruit is full of oxalic acid, so not the most fortunate choice. However, if it's ripe, it can be eaten in small quantities. It's very flavorful and sweet."
"So you've had this before?"
"Yes. This plant bears fruit every other growing season or so, but it needs about a year to ripen."
Suddenly, her enthusiasm was gone. "I'll be in Switzerland by the time it's ripe!"
"You could take a day or two off, maybe..."
Amara laid on her stomach, holding the pillow under her chin. "I guess that could work."