TUESDAY
Kurama returned home early again Tuesday afternoon, though he had been gone since the crack of dawn. He left before the sun even broke across the rooftops, to attend a meeting before 'the market' opened that day. Hiei had no idea what sort of market Kurama's company was involved with, but he deduced based on the frequency and intensity of their meetings that humans considered it to be of dire importance.
Hiei rolled out of bed much later in the morning, as he often did, and discovered another note waiting for him on the counter. He pawed at his messy hair and rubbed the sleep from his eyes, clearing his head until his brain functioned well enough to read. The note included only one chore this time,
"Get a chicken for dinner and leave it in the refrigerator."
Hiei set the paper back on the counter and fixed himself breakfast in high spirits. He knew for a fact that humans consumed chickens all the time. Finding one should be no trouble at all, considering their popularity.
Now that the mysterious workings of the electric stove were known to him, Hiei was able to prepare himself a full breakfast without any assistance. He fried up eggs and two thick slices of bacon, and toasted a square of bread right in the pan. Warm rice already sat in the rice cooker from when Kurama had eaten earlier that morning. Hiei paired his meal with a bowl of instant miso soup that involved nothing more complicated than combining the packaged ingredients with boiling water. As heating things was one of his specialties, the soup was ready in no time.
After he'd eaten his fill, he dressed in his usual ensemble of black. Already, the morning was hot and steamy. Curls of water vapor that had solidified as dew the night before evaporated from the asphalt of the road. Soon, the sun would be right overhead, lighting up a sky that was clear and blue. Hiei considered that his clothing might be out of place on such a warm day, but concealing his katana was much easier when he wore his tunic. Fortunately, the heat had no effect on him.
With his sword secured at his side, he leaped from the terrace railing, too quickly to be seen by human eyes. For half the day, he scoured the parks and backyards of the city in search of a fat, clucking chicken, but came up empty handed. Wild chickens proved exceedingly hard to come by, so rare that he eventually realized the birds he'd eaten must have been caught elsewhere and sold in stores after they were already dead.
Hiei bounded from building to building, and dropped back down to street level only when he discovered a small shop with cuts of meat on display. He was about to run all the way back home and find the money Kurama kept tucked away for just such an occasion, until he caught sight of the local park down the road and developed a better idea.
He was polishing his sword when Kurama walked in, set his shoes in the customary place on the shelf, and strolled inside. Though he appeared a bit more tired than usual, he maintained a cheerful countenance as he crossed the room and removed his suit jacket. He hung it up in the closet immediately, clearly glad to be rid of it.
"Stressful day?" Hiei inquired.
"Just a bit more stressful than usual," Kurama responded.
His neck tie followed the jacket, and he undid the top button of his white shirt.
"I trust your day was far more relaxing," Kurama said.
"I can't complain."
As Hiei predicted, Kurama walked into the kitchenette next. He opened up the refrigerator, and Hiei waited to be congratulated for his excellent find. He sheathed his katana and set it down on the carpet. Half of Kurama's body disappeared behind the refrigerator door, so Hiei watched his back.
Kurama eventually righted himself and gave Hiei a long, flabbergasted stare. His smile was gone.
"Hiei… what is the meaning of this?"
From inside the fridge, he retrieved a nicely plucked duck. Its head, still attached, lolled back and forth, dangling from its limp neck.
"What this city lacks in chickens, it makes up for in ducks," Hiei explained. "Catching one wasn't challenging at all."
"Please tell me no one saw you," Kurama groaned.
"Hn, of course not," Hiei said. "The only people in the park were a cluster of women and children, wasting their time ogling at the water."
"Hiei, they were feeding the ducks!"
"What are you talking about?"
Hiei observed Kurama close his eyes and suck in a long, deep breath through his nose. He was grasping at whatever shred of patience his work day had left him. Carefully, he set the cleaned duck back inside the refrigerator and joined Hiei on the rug.
"Those ducks aren't meant for eating," he said. "They live in the park and people come to feed them as a form of entertainment."
"How much entertainment could one possibly glean from a duck?" Hiei said. He shook his head dismissively.
"Lesson six," Kurama said. "Human beings have a very complicated relationship with other animals. Some are pets, some are for eating, while still others are used for research."
"And just how was I supposed to know the ducks wandering around outside were any different from those hanging dead in the butcher's shop on the same street?" Hiei questioned. Now his own patience was thinning. He leaned away from Kurama and brought one knee to his chest.
"I suppose mankind's system for differentiating animals is rather arbitrary, but one needs to be aware of it," Kurama said.
He rose from the floor and crossed the room to the dresser. By the way he moved, Hiei could tell he'd been hit by a sudden spark of inspiration.
"Get changed," Kurama instructed. "I think we have just enough time for a little outing."
A train ride brought them to the enormous station in Ueno, a bustling rail hub that was packed with people coming and going. Kurama and Hiei wove through the crowd, dodging confused tourists who rushed to catch their trains and gaggles of wisecracking students on their way home from school. Once they emerged from the station, they were transported into another world. Ueno Park was a vast oasis of natural beauty thrown into the center of a grey metropolis. An entire avenue of museums made up the eastern border, stately monuments that complimented the wide plaza dividing the park in half.
On the other side of the plaza, a gate came into view among the trees. Hiei understood at once why Kurama had taken him here, and wasn't sure if he should feel insulted.
"A zoo?"
"Ueno Zoo is the oldest in Japan," Kurama said. "It was founded over one hundred years ago."
"Still not as old as you though," Hiei said.
"Hardly," Kurama laughed.
Hiei saw from the sign beside the ticket booth that the zoo would close in just over an hour, but the pathways were still busy. The largest crowd was right ahead of them, gathered around an enclosure filled with towering rocks, stalks of bamboo, and some sort of wooden climbing apparatus. A wall of glass separated the human spectators from a rotund, black and white animal, whom Hiei could just barely see past the mob of people.
"Some kind of bear?" he asked, when Kurama finished paying and led him into the zoo's interior.
"Ling Ling, a giant panda," Kurama said. They paused near the habitat to get a better look. "He's the most popular animal here."
The panda munched on a clump of bamboo leaves, either unaware or unperturbed that a crowd of fifty people was gathered around his home, taking pictures. It was so incredibly docile that Hiei wondered if the glass barrier was to protect the panda, rather than the visitors. He was also unable to determine why a creature that did nothing but sit and eat was the most popular animal in the zoo, but supposed the obsession was yet another symptom of humanity's fondness for fluffy, useless things.
Beyond the panda exhibit were dozens of enclosed areas, each housing a different variety of animal. Kurama and Hiei walked by gargantuan, wrinkled beasts called elephants, through a building filled with dark, beady eyed bats, and past a miniature jungle that was home to a family of hairy apes.
"Are you sure Kuwabara didn't escape from this pen?" Hiei remarked. His sly sneer was met with a muted laugh from Kurama.
An elevated bridge separated the two sections of the zoo. They crossed and rounded the pathway until they reached the far end of the western section, where Kurama brought Hiei inside an attraction called the Vivarium. Within, snakes sat motionlessly in their tanks. An ancient turtle that was big enough to ride munched lazily on a bowl of lettuce. It was in a deep, murky pool of water, guarded on all sides by more glass, that Hiei saw what he considered the most interesting animal yet. It could only be described as a water dragon, and had a mouth full of threatening, jagged teeth. Had it been allowed, it could have eaten both of them in a snap, with room for more.
"So, you like the crocodile?" Kurama asked. He leaned over Hiei's shoulder and peeked through the glass.
"This creature would be right at home in the Makai," Hiei said.
"You're probably right," Kurama said. "Like many large reptiles, they're long lived, and are deadly, efficient predators."
"I like it more and more," Hiei commented.
After passing by several more enclosures, they entered another building. Instead of snakes and lizards, this one was filled with mostly small, furry mammals, such as rats and mice. An animal covered in painful looking quills caught Hiei's attention. The placard outside the cage said, 'Hedgehog', and Hiei was envisioning how effective it might be to pick it up and throw at someone, when he noticed Kurama had wandered off.
Hiei caught sight of him down the hall, standing alone in front of one of the final habitats in the exhibit. A few clusters of onlookers passed between them, visitors who were desperate to get one last look at their favorite animals before the zoo closed. Hiei pushed through the thinning crowd, too interested in what had captivated Kurama to even glare at anyone. He opened his mouth to ask what had monopolized his partner's attention, but once he saw what resided inside the cage, there was no need.
Kurama glanced down only when Hiei was right beside him. He still smiled, but there was no joy there. A quiet, personal sort of melancholy was in his eyes.
Staring back at Kurama were two rusty red foxes, their tails tipped with white. They focused on him intently, ears pricked forward, whiskers twitching. Like all the other animals in the zoo, they were only beasts, beings who lived to hunt and mate and die. Somehow, though, they were aware, on some level, that the man looking in on them was a distant, venerable brother. They were of the same blood. Kin, however far removed.
"A complicated relationship, as I said," Kurama stated.
"You knew they would be here, didn't you," Hiei said to him.
"That's right."
Kurama brought his hand up to the glass, and the foxes lifted their noses to meet it.
"I looked just like this, once," he said, "though that was so long ago, it feels more like a dream than a memory."
"Why not come back here when everyone is gone, and set them free?" Hiei asked.
"It would do no good," Kurama said. "These two have been here their entire lives. They would never survive in the wild."
"You know that just by looking at them?"
Hiei took in every detail of the foxes who gazed at Kurama endlessly, but couldn't see how they differed from any fox he'd seen in the past. Kurama simply lowered his hand and said,
"I asked them."
Before the zoo shut down for the evening, Kurama brought Hiei to the snack stand near the gift shop and bought him a soda. They sat down on a bench alongside Shinobazu Pond, a body of water in the western garden that served as a nesting ground for pelicans, storks, and ducks who had wandered in from outside the zoo. City traffic, muted by the thick groves of the park, could be heard below the honks and quacks of the mallards who swam to the edge of the pond. They swarmed in front of the bench and fought among themselves as Kurama demonstrated the time honored art of throwing bits of cracker into the water.
He stared listlessly as he flicked one cracker after another to the greedy ducks until he exhausted his supply. When he was through, Kurama rubbed his hands on the legs of his jeans and sighed. Wind, bringing with it the sweet smells of a balmy summer evening, blew past and mussed his hair. Kurama took care to brush his tangled bangs out of his face, but did not look up.
"I brought you here to educate you, but ended up reminding myself of something instead."
"What's that?"
Hiei took another sip of his soda. Kurama was still facing the water, watching the expanding ripples formed by the ducks as they swam away.
"In a way, I'm as much of a stranger in this world as you are," Kurama said. "I keep myself so busy that sometimes even I forget what I am... what I was, rather. I began my life in the forest, like you did, fighting to survive, running, starving. I was a creature of instinct, blind to anything beyond the now of animal thinking. All of my wisdom, my tricks and techniques, came much later."
The empty soda can made a metallic clink when it touched the seat of the bench, like a tuneless bell. Hiei outstretched his arm and rested it across the wooden backrest. His bare wrist grazed the ends of Kurama's thick hair, as soft and full as any fox's tail. At first glance, there was nothing feral or wild about Kurama's appearance. The longer one looked, however, the more his otherworldly beauty revealed what he was. His mouth spoke the truths of the natural world. His eyes were the green of the forest. Beneath all that, his spirit was as clever and canny as any man or apparition could hope to be. It was the untempered essence of a sly kitsune, sleek and silver.
"You still look like them," Hiei said, "underneath it all."
He thought he felt Kurama quiver, though it could be the breeze ruffling his shirt.
"I'm lucky to have someone who sees me for what I am," he said.
"Not only sees," Hiei corrected. "Appreciates."
Kurama was aware of everything, and knew well how much Hiei loathed public displays of affection. In spite of this, he risked bending over to touch his lips to Hiei's brow. Perhaps because he was in the presence of still water and vibrant, emerald vegetation, which happened to put him in a good mood, Hiei allowed the intrusion.
"Let's go home and cook that duck," Kurama said.