America was a strange place to be, especially since the people were so different. In Japan, she had come to expect polite indifference from the majority of people. Here, in the hot and humid place called Georgia, people were oddly nosy and ran the gamut from overly friendly to downright rude.
Shoseki, and his mate, Mineo, were tolerated in the community as "token gays" which was a term Sagaku had never heard before. Instead of being insulted, the two men joked that the south had needed a good dose of gay to break up the monotony of the bible (something else she was unfamiliar with). The two of them moved every five to ten years to avoid humans recognizing what they were.
"These Americans don't believe in demons or the different worlds," Mineo explained once. "There are those in Japan who hold to the old traditions. This, though? This is the 'New World.'"
In Georgia, Shoseki and Mineo went by Americanized names, Sam and Mike. They called her Sage to avoid the odd looks her name got in public. It was a façade they used to acclimate to the American culture.
The knowledge Sagaku gathered, from both Shoseki and the books filled with his mother's work, far surpassed what she'd begun to learn on her own. The serpentine his mother had first written about was an old wife's tale that had turned out to be true. She expanded from there, just like Sagaku. Now, Sagaku, Shoseki and Mineo gathered rocks from around the world to test how far their abilities stretched. Although Sagaku couldn't make solid rock split as she had the one time in extreme duress, they found more efficient ways to do what they could.
Sagaku also continued working on her physical pursuits, tag-teaming Shoseki with Mineo until even he was willing to spend an hour each day stretching his physical limits.
The most effective way to call on stones, as Sagaku had already discovered, was to keep it in close proximity. Against her skin was as close as she could get it without embedding it in her, which sounded both painful and disturbing.
"My dad would scream if he could see me now." Sagaku leaned in, grinning at the two lovers conspiratorially. The lapis lazuli choker around her throat glinted dully in the light. "He always said adorning oneself with jewelry was entirely improper."
"Jewelry? I don't see any jewelry," Mineo winked, his violet eyes squinting in humor. Sagaku stuck her tongue out at him. "Oh, let's get that pierced too!" he joked, clapping his hand together. Sagaku laughed, but retracted her tongue before he could get any more ideas.
"I think I have enough piercings, thanks," she said wryly. "Plus, I don't want to hurt Nenriki's feelings."
"Fair enough," Shoseki said. He waggled his eyebrows at her, the gem silica piercing over his left eye dancing. She tried to wiggle her own eyebrows, and matching piercing back, but it was still a bit sore. Nenriki, she decided, had a gentler touch than the tattoo artist they went to here for piercings.
Sagaku had only allowed two facial piercings-the one in her eyebrow, closer to her third eye chakra than most jewelry would allow, and the tiny, tiny little stud of moonstone on her nose. Shoseki couldn't even feel moonstone, but Sagaku did and enjoyed the calmness that it seemed to radiate when she was getting headaches.
The rest of jewelry adorning Sagaku was worn as a belt or belly piercing (moss agate and molybdenite quartz for balance and stability), bracelets on her lower and upper arms (red jasper, garnet, and ruby), rings on most fingers (yellow sapphire, blue sapphire, sphene, ulexite, zincite, and covellite) the chopsticks gifted to her by her friends, an anklet (mook jasper, a very special gift from Shoseki who understood her grief at losing her sisters), and several necklaces (quartz, serpentine, and lapis lazuli). She even kept one strap with thin strips of midnight lemurian jade high on her thigh, hidden beneath her skirts. The trick wasn't finding the best place to situate the jewelry, it was figuring out how to keep it steady and out of the way during fights. The choker didn't get in the way, but her longer cords could be used to strangle her if she wasn't careful.
As much as Sagaku enjoyed the company of Shoseki and Mineo, and their propensity for physical closeness and cuddles, she missed her friends in Japan. With a ten-hour difference in time zones, they resorted to sending emails most weeks. She missed the sound of their voices.
When Shoseki and Sagaku finished deciphering the last page of notes his mother had written, he leaned back and eyed her sagely.
"You'll be going home, soon," he said casually.
A lump formed in Sagaku's throat when she nodded. She loved Shoseki and Mineo, but she yearned to be with her first friends, the first people who had never expected anything of her but loved her all the same.
Shoseki pulled Sagaku into a rough hug, releasing her abruptly.
"We're going to miss you," he breathed out. "And not just because you made more headway with my mother's notes in one year than I did in an entire century."
"Female intuition," Sagaku joked weakly, sniffing to stop the tears.
Less than two weeks later, Sagaku was packed and ready to go home, having secured promises to never lose touch from both Mineo and Shoseki. And as soon as she finished removing her jewelry to get through airport security, she would be that much closer.
Keiko jostled at Yusuke, trying to get him to move out of the way so she could see the people getting off the plane.
"Do you see her?" Keiko asked, peering over Yusuke's shoulder.
Kurama and Kuwabra stood with them, scanning the crowd carefully for the familiar sloe-eyed girl. Hiei stood farther back, absolutely fuming. He would leave if he didn't have business to discuss with the fox - business Kurama refused to bring up until they'd picked Sagaku up. It was infuriating and he simply wasn't paid enough for this nonsense. The airport was smelly, disgusting, and loud. And they'd made him leave his katana in the car.
"Oh, heck," Yusuke whistled. Keiko hit him in the back of the head.
"What is it, do you see her?" she asked her errant boyfriend again. He tilted his head at an angle.
"I think so. Nope, I know so." Yusuke started chuckling. "That's definitely our Sagaku."
"Saga!" Kuwabara bellowed, finally catching a glimpse of her as well. The girl spun, her eyes searching until they found her friends. Her entire face lit up in joy. Sagaku rushed through the crowd of people, dragging her suitcase behind her.
All greetings the Hanshoku girl had were lost amid the noise from passer-bys. Hiei leaned against the nearest wall, glowering at the backs of his supposed friends. They ignored him, hugging and chattering excitedly.
It wasn't until everyone was done greeting the girl and they had turned to leave that Hiei got his first glimpse of Sagaku in over a year. With less schooling, his eyes might have widened in shock. Instead, they narrowed to hide his surprise.
The girl still looked a little cherubic-nothing would ever change that. She was still short and slender and looked like she was getting ready to vomit sunshine on the world. But now she wore a brown skirt, knotted up near her hip to give her ease of movement. It was nothing like the skirt she'd worn from the warren; the longest hem of this skirt only just covered her right knee. The other side, with the knot, was a good four inches higher. Sandals were strapped to her feet, so she wasn't running around like a barefooted child anymore. Though she'd worn tank tops in the past, the one she wore now bared a sliver of stomach to the world. That wasn't what caught his eye, though-it was the amassment of semi-precious stones and metals. Every time she moved, light reflected off something different. Were he still a thief, she'd be the ideal target.
Hiei's eyes moved up to her face, still tracking the changes. She met his eyes, a smirk playing on her lips.
"Miss me, Hiei?" she purred.
"Hn," he grunted, scowling and spinning on heel to walk out. Better hurry this, fox, he griped at Kurama. I have better things to be doing right now.
Of course, Kurama sounded faintly amused.
"I can't believe how much I missed you all!" Sagaku said behind Hiei. She linked arms with Keiko and Kurama since Kuwabara had gallantly taken her suitcase from her. "Even you, oh silent one!" she said to the back of Hiei's head. He ignored her studiously. He hadn't even thought of her when she was gone. Of course he hadn't missed her.
Sagaku and her friends chattered back and forth the entire drive home, interrupting one anecdote with the next and speaking over each other to be heard. Back at the apartment, Sagaku settled onto the couch, squeezing into the space between Kurama and Yusuke without hesitation. They all still chattered, chirping away like damn birds. Hiei gritted his teeth, boring a hole into Kurama's skull with the force of his stare. Kurama ignored him, still radiating amusement.
"I've never seen you so happy," Keiko smiled at her friend. Sagaku grinned back, reaching over Yusuke to hold onto Keiko's hand.
"So are you going to explain all the bling?" Yusuke asked, slipping out from between Keikok and Sagaku to claim some breathing space.
Sagaku leaned forward, letting the necklaces fall from her neckline so they could examine all the stones. Hiei watched with interest.
"Each stone carries different properties," Sagaku explained. "Shoseki and I must have gone to a hundred different new age shops and thrift stores to get them all. A lot of the supposed properties are junk, but we spent the last year going over his mom's research and conducting our own experiments. They all do something different, help enhance or protect in different ways."
"You spent a year researching?" Yusuke snorted.
"I could've spent another five years and barely scratched the surface," Sagaku said earnestly. "But they were running out of places to pierce." She winked bawdily at Kuwabara when she said it. He smacked his hands over his eyes, groaning.
"You've turned into a perve," he complained.
"I blame bad influences for the last two years," Sagaku teased him.
Though it was only noon, Sagaku yawned loudly, stretching so far that everyone in the room was afforded a glimpse of the piercing in her belly.
"Go to bed," Keiko said kindly. "You must have jet lag. We'll talk more once you wake up."
Sagaku did go to bed, hugging each of her friends once more, except for Hiei who moved out of her reach.
Kurama, done playing games with the shorter demon, left the apartment to go discuss business. It was only information from past reconnaissance that Hiei needed. Kurama didn't regret making Hiei spend time with them, though. It was good for the shorter demon, though he was loathe to admit it.
Sagaku slept through the rest of the day, and the night too though she woke up briefly for dinner. By morning, she was feeling more like her usual self.
In America, for the nights she couldn't sleep she'd climbed into bed between Shoseki and Mineo who joked that they had hundreds of years together so losing a few months of privacy was no big deal. She tried imaging doing that here and found she couldn't. Kuwabara would freak out, gallant giant that he was. Keiko and Yusuke certainly wouldn't appreciate Sagaku interrupting their time together. Kurama would lecture her on why certain physical closeness was okay, but personal boundaries had to be respected. And Hiei wouldn't even let her within arms' reach. She could always find a stranger to sleep with.
Sagaku burst out laughing at her own folly. Shoseki had done his best to explain sex to her, and the many different aspects she had to be aware of (honor, fidelity, physical, emotional...the list seemed endless). He wanted her to be better prepared for the next time she went into heat; the last time, she hadn't even understood the strange urges. The next time she wouldn't be so clueless.
Sagaku and Shoseki had argued about whether she would even go into heat again, now that she had the serpentine and other stones. His voice had grown dark, remembering some pain from the past. "Nature always prevails in the end," he warned her.
Sagaku laughed to herself again. One year in America and every thought seemed to turn itself to sex. It was all of those "that's what she said" jokes, probably.
As soon as she could hear Yusuke and Keiko moving around in their own room, Sagaku got up and made breakfast the American way-scrambled eggs smothered in hot sauce.
"What are your plans for the day?" Keiko asked, carefully nibbling at the spicy eggs.
"I'm going to pay Koenma a visit to see when he'll start giving me work," Sagaku answered. She put a mug of coffee in front of the zombie-like Yusuke. He took it with a muttered thanks. "After that...I don't know. Maybe I'll visit a park. I've never seen one here, you know. Isn't that strange? Shoseki and Mineo took me to the one in Georgia all the time."
"Take someone with you," Yusuke grunted, the caffeine slowly penetrating his head.
"I'm able to protect myself now, you know." Sagaku poked Yusuke in the ribs. He narrowed his eyes at her.
"There's a lot of shit going on in the Makai right now," he warned her. "If you think the number of demons we ran into last year was bad, you're in for a shock. They seem to be swarming here."
Sagaku nibbled her lip thoughtfully, wondering if the demons would bother her. Knowing her look, probably. Despite the stones, she was rather weak as far as demons went.
"Okay," she finally agreed. "If I go, I'll grab a buddy."
Botan fawned over Sagaku's new look when she arrived at the Spirit Leader's headquarters Sagaku joked around with the girl until Koenma was ready to meet her.
"You want to start working right away?" he asked with a frown.
"Yes," Sagaku grinned ferally at him, "I want to start using what I learned."
Koenma rummaged around for a while, producing mountains of paperwork for the girl while running over the logistics in his head. It would be foolish to turn away anyone willing to do the dirty work for the spirit world. Still, he'd have to be careful and start her off small until he knew her limits.
"Take this," Koenma commanded at the end of their meeting, passing her a communicator. "I'll contact you with this when you're needed. The rate of pay varies by difficulty of each job. Mostly it'll be boring," he warned her. "Just bounty stuff, finding the demons who have managed to slip through the wards into the Ningenkai."
"I'm fine with that," Sagaku said. She fairly quivered with anticipation.
Before she left, she hesitated at the door. Koenma had already started leafing through some other papers, clearly busy.
"Uh," Sagaku cleared her throat, "sir?"
"Yes?" Koenma asked impatiently, looking up from his work.
"Have you heard from any of my family?" She fiddled with the serpentine around her neck.
Koenma's brown eyes softened. "No," he finally told her. "Jitsu hid them somewhere even I can't access them. I'm sorry."
"Thanks," Sagaku whispered. And then she went home.
Sagaku was going to do what Yusuke and Keiko had suggested-only going to the park with someone else-but neither one of them was at the apartment when she walked in.
Sagaku flipped open her phone and pressed the speed dial for Kurama. Ring. Ring. Still ringing. He'd started graduate school recently. He was probably in class. She held down another number, for Kuwabara. By the time it got to voicemail, Sagaku was tapping her finger impatiently against the receiver. She toyed with the idea of calling Nenriki, since she hadn't seen him since getting back, but if Yusuke was right about the park not being entirely safe, she'd put her friend at risk.
Well, she finally decided, she didn't have to go into the park. She'd find one of those little vendors near the park.
With the decision finally made, Sagaku's fingers hunted and pecked across the small phone, telling Kurama she'd gone to the park and to catch up later if he had the time. The door loomed in front of her, making her feel like she was breaking a promise to Yusuke and Keiko-but they didn't understand she was stronger now. They didn't know what she could do anymore.
Sagaku closed the door firmly behind her and locked it with finality. Her mind was made. Four flights of steps passed quickly as she fairly bounced down them, and when she finally opened the door to the outside all doubts escaped her mind. The entire world brightened in the sunlight, and the air was warm and fresh. There were clouds in the sky, but they were distant enough to be of no concern yet, especially since the nearest park wasn't exactly far from the apartment.