The Biography of Hiei and Botan : Summer Days
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I
Notes from Botan's Journal (spirit): My life changed after I learned what I really was. My dreams didn't scare me, they just struck me as enlightening and fascinating. Not only did it affect my dreams, but my personal life.
Koenma... as much as I loved him as I would love a brother, I couldn't trust him. It hurt my heart, to be edgy around George, Ayame, and Koenma of all people. But I couldn't help myself. I wanted to stay alive.
Mukuro (demon): Surviving soul of the Christmas Massacre? Now that you mention it, Hiei did say something about it.
A few days before the fiasco, he appeared in my office. His eyes were darkened and he spoke to me as if he were on death row.
"Mukuro, can I ask you a question?"
He was on one knee. I motioned for him to stand up.
"I thought we'd been through the fact that you don't need to ask me this."
The Koorime stood, brushing off his knees as his eyes met mine.
"I meant off record."
I was a bit surprised at this. Off the record was another way of saying to keep that question and answer a secret.
"Oh. Yes, you may."
He straightened his back and licked his lips before continuing.
"If I happened to come across someone important... that were involved in the Christmas Massacre... could I come to you for help?"
My heart began to beat faster. It is known that I hold that Massacre close to my heart. I raised my eyebrow.
"I suppose you would be able to." I poured some wine into a glass. "But no such person exists." I sipped the blood red wine. "Would you like some?"
My Second in Command turned swiftly on his heels.
"No thanks."
At the time, I didn't think of anything of it, watching his shadow recede out of my office.
Kurama (kitsune): You could say that Hiei and Botan were brought together by the Massacre. He would come over, but not as much as he used to. I mean, it was purely understandable. Each visit would be heavily laced with apocalyptic talk of what we should do. One can only take so much of that.
But there was the other thing... the reason that I never brought up.
Botan.
I knew that they were seeing each other a lot in those days. By the new information about her that be brought back. By the smell of her on his hands or cloak. Or his overall slightly more relaxed attitude.
Were they lovers?
No.
Not then.
Yusuke Urameshi (demon): Genkai had a little barbecue in the summer before Botan's great departure.
Everyone came. Kuwabara flirted with Yukina. Hiei glared at him, standing next to Kurama. Shizuru would either be hitting her brother, chatting it up with Keiko or Botan, or standing with Kurama. My girlfriend, Keiko, was all over the place, mostly just talking with the top ferry girl of Rekai. Even Koenma showed up.
What I remember is that everyone was smiling and having a good time. No gossip. No dirty and scandalous secrets. The beauty of not being a family, but a group of best friends.
Then I noticed that Hiei was gone. I scanned for him in the crowd, and that was when I noticed that Botan was gone too.
I was about to shout, but a hand on my shoulder stopped me.
"I wouldn't do that, Yusuke." I turned to see Kurama standing behind me, a small smile quirked on his lips. "Just let them be."
My brown eyes must have shot out of my head.
"Are Hiei... and Botan...?" I was floundering, gesturing helplessly. "You know..."
The fox chuckled.
"No."
He never elaborated. My curiosity was raging. If they weren't screwing each other's brains out, then what were they doing that they couldn't do in the eyes of their best friends?
It drove me so far to the point where I snuck away from the party.
II
Genkai (nigen): That party? I remember Yusuke running out of the forest with his hair and shirt on fire, an angry Hiei hot on his tail.
Notes from Botan's Journal: "My Father, he was a priest." I kicked a stone out of my pathway. "He killed Her. And... I remember walking in on him, saying, 'Daddy?'". It was cool, goose-bumps on my skin. "I saw him that night. I was... I must have been seven. I didn't talk to him for an entire year... then I was..."
I trailed off.
I wasn't alone, that night at the party as I wandered through the woods. It looked like it, to the naked eye. But, I heard a few swishes of metal and a faint cry of a demon.
"Baka onna. Only you picked the most infested place in this forest." Hiei appeared on the branch of a tree in front of me. "And all these images were in your dreams?"
I nodded, rubbing my one arm absentmindedly.
"Yeah. It's not as scary as it was." I shivered, and not because it was cold out. "I'm... I'm not scared of my memories anymore." Another demon was killed, so it wouldn't harm me. "Even now, Koenma... no matter how much we've been through, it seems like I can't trust him."
Hiei flickered so that he was a few feet in front of me. He licked some blood off of his finger tips.
"Hn. You can't." My eyes lowered as I still rubbed at my arm. "Onna. Take this." My pink irises swivelled upwards to see the Forbidden Child holding out his hand to me. In his hand was his black overcoat. "You're cold."
Yukina (Koorime): The one thing about Hiei, was that when he was chasing Yusuke, his overcoat was gone.
Keiko (nigen): I was talking to Botan and she was going on about how Koenma never stops working and how he needed a vacation. The Prince overheard us and chortled along. She was joking and carrying on, and as I was telling her about Yusuke's odd habits, her eyes slightly widened and her grin faded ever so softly.
She bit her lip and excused herself, saying that she had to go to the bathroom.
Funny thing is, when she came back, she was running out of the woods, not the temple. Bathroom? No. She had more important plans to take care of.
Kurama: Hiei and Botan, though neither one of them would admit it, were becoming... friends. I know that it's hard to believe, them being polar opposites. When they first met, Hiei had this hatred for her.
Whenever they talked to each other, it would be death threats exchanged with short jokes. Not exactly the way two friends would act.
But when... when he had to be taken from Sensui's cave, no one could, except one person.
So Botan stayed behind, hoisting him on her back and smiling at us. She gave us a little salute and simply said, "It's what friends do."
I wasn't there when Hiei woke up, but all I knew was that he woke up next to or on the back of the ferry girl. But... what I am sure of... he didn't give her a death threat.
Koenma (Son of God): I know what happened. Botan told me. At the time, she had been immensely confused. She was in my office on her lunch break.
"It was so odd, Koenma."
I was munching on a rice cake.
"Well, what did he do?"
I watched her twist a blue curl around her pointer finger, her eyes traveling up to the ceiling as she recalled her memory.
"I was carrying him out, and you know, that cave is pretty big." Her pink eyes were narrowed, trying to remember every little detail. "I was almost out, so close, and all of a sudden, I feel him move. It was small, but it was just enough to feel him wake up."
She smiled and shivered. I straightened up in my chair.
"What? What happened?"
A giggle escaped her pink lips.
"Well, he was not happy with me."
III
Yusuke: Believe me, if you saw what I saw, you would have screamed too.
Notes from Botan's Journal: I was astonished almost wary to say the least. I mean, since when does Hiei Jaganshi offer anything to anybody out of kindness.
My eyebrows were close together, making a worry line on my forehead as I took his jacket.
"Um... thanks."
I slipped it on, and it was so warm. It must have been his body. It was incredible, really.
"I don't want the one surviving soul of the Christmas Massacre dying of a dumb cold."
My eyes were closed as I literally sank into his jacket. The warmth, the smell, it was all too good. I chuckled.
"You don't have to worry about sickness. Not when it comes to me."
He stopped walking and I bumped into him. When my eyes flashed open, his eyes were inches away from mine. Our eyelashes were brushing up against each other and his nose was rubbing against mine.
"What?" I was paralyzed. "What do you mean, onna?"
I licked my lips, letting out a breath. I knew that it was fanning over his face.
"N-nothing. I h-have a good immune system is all. Honest!"
He was closer. So close. No one had ever been this close to me. Ever.
He reached up to his bandana, to untie it. To activate his Jagan.
Just when I thought he was going to find out just why I can never get sick... a scream made all the birds flee from the trees. It sent shivers down my spine and Hiei accidentally stepped forward.
Our lips touched. For the shortest of moments.
I don't even think he noticed. The next second, he was gone, and I heard Yusuke yelping in pain.
Kurama: Songs were changing on the radio and that was when we heard it. Yusuke's scream. We didn't have time to become chilled or to even make a move towards the general direction before he came out of the woods.
The tips of his hair was on fire and the sleeves of his shirt were also aflame. He wasn't even five feet clear of the forest before Hiei leaped out of the trees, his face darkened with fury.
"Baka detective!"
I wanted to laugh and gasp at the same time. Let me tell you, the mixture of the two will make you cough. Badly.
Genkai: Hiei was harmless. He wasn't going to actually kill Yusuke. Just scare him a bit. Punish him for whatever he did.
Kuwabara (nigen): Thank Kami that Yukina was thinking. I sure wasn't.
Yukina: Well, there really wasn't much thought put into it. Yusuke was on fire and my brother wasn't doing anything to put it out. So I grabbed the cooler, full of the water from melted ice.
I doused Yusuke in the ice cold water, putting the fire out.
IV
Koenma: "Since when his Hiei ever happy? What did he do?"
I really wanted to know. It was a good story so far.
"Well, I didn't know what to do. I mean, Hiei Jaganshi was on my back, awake and conscious, and the only demon I know who hates me with a passion." She drew in a breath. "I paused in my walking. And that gave me away."
"He growled in my ear, saying, 'Onna, let me down now if you want to keep your precious life.'. It was pretty frightening at the time. So I removed my hands from the back of his legs and he slid off of me."
"'Where are the others?' he asked me. I told him that they were coming. I explained to him that I was the only one who could carry him out. 'Why did you do it, onna?'"
I was practically on the edge of my desk.
"What did you tell him?"
Botan smiled at me.
"I just told him that I was the only one, but he didn't like that answer. He said that if I really, really, didn't want to do it, one of the Rekai Tentei would have manned up and carried him out. So... he asked again why I carried him out."
"And I said that it's what a team does. They stand up for each other and help each other."
I snorted.
"And his response to that?"
Botan actually didn't seem put off that I laughed.
"He just kind of muttered, 'You didn't have to do that.' and walked away, hands in his pockets."
The smile on her face, it was airy. Dreamy. She left afterwards, and I had to agree, it was an odd thing for Hiei to do.
I was expecting some gruesome death threat.
But... I mean, I wouldn't be the one to make the judgement, but by Botan's description, it sounded as if Hiei Jaganshi was embarrassed.
Notes from Botan's Journal: I turned to see Yusuke. His eyes were wide and his face was slowly starting to turn red. He burst out laughing, Hiei and I standing still as statues.
"Hiei and Botan sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!" His chest puffed out as if he had just won some argument. "Sorry that I interrupted your make out session."
My face was on fire. I hid my face in my hands, and that was when I heard the ex-detective scream. I peeked through my fingers to see that Yusuke was on fire.
Hiei turned to me, his eyes fiery.
"We will continue this later, onna."
With that sinister promise, he left me, sprinting after the detective.
Enma (God): Botan's body smoked, her kimono starting to smolder and burn. It began to fall away, and I gazed down at her bare back.
Her skin was staring to raise, swirls and ancient patterns glowing and burning into her skin. Her entire back, from her tail bone to the edge of her shoulders would be covered in the age old insignia of Rekai.
When it was finished, it was pale white. The color of scar tissue.
Some have called it a gift. Many have died trying acquire never ending life. Eternal youth.
And those have had it, have deemed it a curse.
Genkai: What did Yusuke see? Don't ask me. I don't know. He looked like he was dying to tell the world. But every time he took deep breath, Hiei's bandana would glow and Yusuke would clamp his mouth shut.
Kurama: Botan followed Hiei out of the woods, and the strange thing was, she was holding his coat. It seemed that Hiei had lost his coat as he chased after Yusuke.
It wasn't until Botan ran up to me that I had my doubts. As she bounded up to me, I saw that her skin was smooth.
Even I had goose-bumps on that cool summer night. And Botan had none.
V
Notes from Botan's Journal: I was walking to my apartment about a week after the barbecue. I was taking a stroll through the park when I heard a voice from the trees.
"An onna like you walking out in the cold should have something warm on." Hiei's black overcoat fluttered down from the trees. "Put it on."
I caught it, pulling it over my shivering body.
"T-thank you."
Hiei jumped down from the tree, his bandana still on.
"I don't want to use my Jagan." His curt statement, no emotion, remorse, nothing. "You can either tell me, or I can make you tell me."
I nodded, my blue hair shifting on my head as I grabbed his wrist and tugged him, silently telling him, 'This way'. The night was silent as I dragged Hiei Jaganshi towards my apartment, not knowing what lay ahead of me in the horizon.
Yusuke: You have no idea how fucking cold that water was.
VI
A/N: Thanks for the reviews! Please leave some if you read this! If you like it, hate it, or if it gives you gas, I want to know! Thankies!
-mia