Alright, alright, let's get this show on the road!
Today's chapter is brought to you by a lovely little song that quite outlines the next few chapters.
I apologize again for the poor schedule keeping, but I am taking an ASL class that is very time consuming; it requires far more practice than any other language I've learned (German, a half a year of French).
With that said, let's try to get on with things, shall we?
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CH V
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Hardest of Hearts
by Florence + The Machine
'''
There is love in your body, but you can't hold it in,
It pours from your eyes and it spills from your skin;
The tenderest touch leaves the darkest of marks,
And the kindest of kisses break the hardest of hearts...
...
(The hardest of hearts x3)
…
There is love in your body, but you can't get it out,
It gets stuck in your head, won't come out of your mouth;
Sticks to your tongue and it shows on your face
That the sweetest of words,
Have the bitterest taste...
'''
Darling how I loved you from the start,
But you'll never know what a fool I've been;
Darling how I loved you from the start,
But that's no excuse for the state I'm in –
'''
(the hardest of hearts x3)
'''
There is love in our bodies and it holds us together,
But pulls us apart when we're holding each other;
We all need something to hold in the night,
We don't care if it hurts when we're holding too tight –
'''
There is love in your body, but you can't get it out,
It gets stuck in your head, won't come out of your mouth;
It sticks to your tongue and it shows on your face
That the sweetest of words
Have the bitterest taste –
'''
Darling how I loved you from the start,
But you'll never know what a fool I've been;
Darling how I loved you from the start,
But that's no excuse for the state I'm in –
'''
(the hardest of hearts x3)
'''
My heart swells, like water at weight;
Can't stop myself, before it's too late;
Hold on to your heart, 'cause I'm coming to fight you –
Hold on to your heart,
'Cause I'm coming to break you...
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Morning went without too much of a hitch – Yusuke was quieter than normal, but he moved around and ate breakfast in his typical fashion, grabbing something out of the fridge and stuffing it into his mouth without giving a glance to what he was eating. Normal Yusuke things.
However, Kurama could sense the turmoil he kept hidden behind the casual slope of his shoulders and nonchalant attitude. His silence said it all – not that anyone could blame him.
" Yusuke," Kurama grabbed his attention as he walked through the living room, presumably on his way to plop on the couch. It took him longer than usual to come out of this thoughts, but he eventually lifted his jaded eyes to meet the fox's emerald ones. He wasn't at all happy about what he seen, if the twisted expression on his face was any indication.
"Come with me." Kurama said simply, turning and walking out the door, headed for the room Genkai had situated herself in for the moment to come. He did not wait for Yusuke to follow, knowing he would find himself there either way. He would be lying, however, if he said he wasn't a little proud when Yusuke came stumbling down the hall after him with a shout.
"Hey, don't tell me to come with you and then just leave me like that!"
Opening the Shoji to one of Genkai's more private rooms located against the inner courtyard, it became apparent by way of the specially adapted TV in the center of the wall on one side what, exactly, Kurama had brought Yusuke here to do.
"I take it then that you contacted pacifier-breath this morning?" Yusuke asked bitterly.
"No," Genkai said, sipping on tea. "I did. There's no getting away from this, Yusuke. I can promise you that there is nowhere in the human world or even in the depths of Hell that Koenma can not reach you if need be; running away would only make your sentence worse anyway."
"Sentence?" Yusuke completely froze, skin paling a bit. "What are you talkin' about, Hag? I didn't do anything illegal, did I? It's not like I..." Yusuke looked to Kurama then with a dark light of panic in his eyes.
"Don't tell me..."
"No, Yusuke. Keiko is still very much alive." Kurama reassured, watching him breathe a deep sigh of relief. "However, you're an S class demon. If you were a lower class, it probably wouldn't be a big deal for you to have lashed out at her; at most, you might have to do a little community service, like me and Hiei did." Kurama explained. "However, as an S class demon, your power level and unstable mentality means that once you've begun endangering human life..."
"And you couldn't think to tell me this before, Kurama?!" Yusuke exclaimed. "No one told me I could go to spirit world jail for that shit! Hell, if someone had told me that, I probably would have been more careful about the kind of stuff I was doing!"
"Well, it's too late now, dimwit." Genkai snapped, turning on the telly. "You can't go back and change your mind. Whatever Koenma does to you is completely out of my hands." Genkai stopped, wanting to say more, but noticing Yusuke's skin go a shade whiter. He was scared.
"Hello? Hello? Is this thing on?"Yusuke nearly jumped at the sound of Koenma's voice on the screen, whirling around to see the little toddler tapping the screen.
"It's on, my lord." George replied in the background somewhere off-screen. Yusuke waited impatiently for Koenma to make himself presentable, just as unprepared as ever.
"Yusuke. Front and center please." A wave of unease gripped his gut as he stepped in front of the screen; Koenma's "serious" voice didn't help.
"Yeah, what'd'ya want, Koenma?" Yusuke replied, though they both knew exactly why he was standing there.
"Urameshi Yusuke, twenty two years old, S class demon..." Koenma read off an official looking document. "You have endangered human life against the code...oh, well what matters is that you endangered the life of a human against the rules. You are not a documented human-eater; for you to attempt such a thing, even by accident, is a crime."
"Yeah, so I've been told. Now what are you going to do with me, toddler?" Yusuke snapped irritably, his unease transforming itself into a defensive kind of anger.
"I'm not happier about this than you are, Yusuke." Koenma slowly removed the page from before his face, letting Yusuke see the melancholy expression he wore. "But my job as ruler comes before my friendships; as much as I wish it wasn't so, Yusuke...I'm sorry."
"So what's my sentence?" Yusuke asked quietly, mentally prepared to handle whatever he dished out. Or, so he liked to think. Koenma heaved a heavy sigh.
"Urameshi Yusuke." Koenma announced all official-like. "Due to the nature of your actions – that is to say, because you did not intentionally injure Keiko, as well as taking into account your prior work for me, your sentence is far lighter than it would normally be. However, before you get your hopes up, know that this sentence, while fairly mild, is going to probably last a long time." He looked to Kurama tellingly, and the fox steeled himself for what he knew was to come, having also spoken with Koenma this morning with Genkai.
"Yusuke, I, Koenma, hereby sentence you to twenty years probation in the human world; your probation officer will be none other than Kurama, and he will enforce the rules your restrictions place upon you – with lethal force, if necessary." Koenma lost most of his official-ness halfway through, grimacing as he said the last line. "Should you break the rules again, or repeat your offense, the consequences will be far, far more dire. Now, I'm not supposed to tell you what exactly those consequences are, but because I regard you as a friend, I will make this one exception: should you break the rules, depending on which one, your sentence could increase in time or severity – likely the latter. In other words, the consequences could be as light as removing you from the human world until you can control yourself...or as severe as warranting your execution."
"But if you're going to send me off to the demon world if I do something wrong, then why bother keeping me here?" Koenma face-palmed.
"Did you not just hear me! I said you could be killed if you do the wrong thing!"
"Yeah, I heard you, pacifier-breath. Now answer my question."
"Fine, but listen to me, Yusuke; if you have to be executed, it will not be me or even Kurama who will do it, unless of course he has to." Once again he looked to Kurama. "Let's just say that that is NOT a road I advise you to take. If that order is put into effect, it automatically goes out of my hands. I am not the only God, after all. While I do govern the spirit world, I do not decide who lives or dies directly, not with criminals; that is the job of others far higher up on the celestial hierarchy than me." Koenma sighed. "And to answer your question, brat, I only narrowly managed to convince my father et al to let you stay in the human world. I told them that it was your home; you were born and raised there, and to remove you could cause further mental disturbances."
"You make it sound like I'm insane." Yusuke chided.
"To be blunt, Yusuke, losing control of yourself and acting on the impulses of the voices in your head sort of makes you less than sane, as per the human standard. Now, if you leave the human world, you will then be judged according to demon world standards – and I'm sure Kurama could tell you what jail is like there." Yusuke looked over to the fox to see his morose expression. Not exactly comforting.
"So, what exactly are the rules – Koenma?" Yusuke looked back only to find that the toddler had disconnected.
"Bastard! You can't just hang up like that!" Yusuke raised an aggressive fist, but withdrew it just as quickly.
Genkai, sitting quiet through it all, stood up then. "Kurama can explain to you the circumstances of your restrictions, as well as all the things Koenma didn't have the balls to tell you." Yusuke started at the news.
"Wait, there's more?!"
"Naturally." Genkai finished her tea. "If you need me, you know where to find me, fox." And with that, Genkai left the two demons alone in the big, otherwise empty room.
"Hey! Don't just walk out when I'm trying to talk to you –" Yusuke went to take after her, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him dead.
"Yusuke." said boy cringed, not at all liking the way that his friend had said his name. He hated it when Kurama got all serious and grave – it gave him chills, to be perfectly honest. Yusuke turned around to face the fox a little unwillingly, avoiding eye contact.
"So..." Yusuke said after an awkward silence followed in which Kurama's hand did not move from his shoulder. "Are you gonna tell me the stuff or what..." Growing more and more uneasy, Yusuke tried to shake off the older demon's hand, to no avail. The fact his efforts were futile surprised him, since Kurama's fingers were touching him as softly as a whisper. Maybe that's what made it uncomfortable to him – he was so gentle, it was as if he was pitying him. Kurama's sigh drew Yusuke's eyes to his face, his expression impassable.
"The only thing that Koenma didn't tell you about your sentence is that you will be moving." Yusuke's brow shot up. "Moving?"
"Yes. As your...officer," Kurama's face scrunched up at the word, clearly uncomfortable with it. "I need to be able to keep an eye on you...twenty-four-seven." Yusuke's face wasted no time transforming into one of surprise.
"What? So, you gotta be around me, like...all the time?" Yusuke back tracked once he realized how rude that sounded. "Don't take that the wrong way, I just..."
"I understand." Kurama's hand on his shoulder tightened ever so slightly before dropping back to his side and disappearing into his pocket. "I, too, like my personal space." Though he got the feeling it wasn't intentional, Yusuke couldn't help but read into that statement a little. True enough, Kurama was one of those people, the kind Yusuke couldn't ever really understand. He was the sort of guy you gave a wide berth to on the street and who you didn't initiate any kind of physical contact with unless he did it first. Yusuke didn't know why, but it was just kind of an unspoken rule about Kurama – you didn't touch him unless he made it clear he wanted to be touched. Which was hardly ever. Even now, with Kurama putting his hand on his shoulder, Yusuke could still sense, somehow, that it wasn't safe to initiate contact. His posture was withdrawn and his eyes more shadowed than normal. Touching Kurama now would very likely offend him, at best, or stir up an even worse reaction – one Yusuke could only have nightmares about, and which he hoped stayed safely in his head.
"So...does that mean we're moving in together?"
"Yes, Yusuke." Kurama chuckled, breaking some of the tension. "I've already spoken to mother about it. Now, if you don't mind, I think we can continue this conversation elsewhere, hm?"
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"hey," Yusuke huffed as he lugged his mostly empty suitcase out of Kurama's car. "Are you sure this is okay? I mean...I did hurt somebody once..." The pained expression on Yusuke's face prompted the fox to turn around and place a comforting hand on his back, just like he had before.
"I know you're not very confident in yourself right now, and I don't blame you at all. But...well, I have faith in you, if no one else does." Yusuke looked up at the fox, wondering when exactly he got taller than him. "I've seen you pull through things that even I could never hope to recover from. You're strong, Yusuke – you might not always see it, but I can." Yusuke couldn't stop himself from smiling a little at the warm look on the fox's face.
"Thanks, bud. You know, I noticed it once, but you're really the only person who's ever there all the time anyway." Kurama cocked his head to the side curiously as he listened, reminding Yusuke of a real fox. "I mean, who else answers the phone at four in the morning because I got drunk and can't drive home?"
"Well, it's not uncommon for me to be up at that hour anyway, so it's not that big of a deal." Kurama dismissed with a wave of his hand and a sheepish smile on his face.
"Still," Yusuke slung an arm over him, feeling it appropriate. "You're one hell of a friend. Even if you're also now my probation officer...speaking of which, how the hell did that happen, anyway?" Yusuke asked as they got to the door of Kurama's house.
"I volunteered for the job." Yusuke's brows went up at this. "It was either me or Hiei, and I was certain that you needed someone with a more level head to deal with your...episodes." Kurama explained. A "light-bulb" expression came onto his face then as he recalled something. "Ah, I also forgot to tell you: Koenma has put me in charge of figuring out exactly what kinds of events trigger these episodes – with that said, I would greatly appreciate it if you didn't try to eat me." It took a moment for the jab to settle in, but the stupid grin on the fox's face told Yusuke it was in jest – as did the fact that he practically bolted inside to get away from him.
"Hey! Not cool, man, not cool!"
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"So...exactly how are you supposed to figure out what's causing these 'episodes' as you refer to them as?" Yusuke asked quietly while fidgeting with a pencil he found on Kurama's old school desk, sitting on his friend's bed as the fox presently occupied said desk, reading through something. Yusuke was bored out of his mind – reading wasn't a popular hobby for him, and neither was doing anything else that required sitting for long periods of time. Checking the clock, it was 11:00pm – fourteen hours he'd been here, and there just wasn't anything left to do. He'd played with Shuuichi junior, had a video game tournament between him and the two brothers, helped Shiori with the dishes after having a rather awkward conversation with her about his reasons for staying here (Kurama had said it was because he forgot to pay rent too many times and now with Keiko's medical bills, he couldn't afford to live in his flat anymore). He and Kurama had attempted a game of Chess, but Yusuke just couldn't wrap his head around the concept. Switching to Shogi, Japanese chess, hadn't helped.
Kurama, or Shuichi as he was known here, sighed and placed down his book – a well-worn copy of some foreign book or another; it looked to be written in English, as Yusuke could discern looking over his shoulder after pacing about moments before.
"And what the hell are you reading?"
"I am reading an original copy of Finnigan's Wake, if you must know."
"Sounds boring."
"It's quite interesting if you know how to read it." Kurama set the book down, touching the cover almost affectionately. He let out a deep sigh. "As for figuring out what the triggers are," He turned to Yusuke smoothly, coming to sit beside him on the bed in like. But it wasn't a casual smoothess – no, something was far too purposeful about it. "We don't have much choice but to do this by trial and error." Kurama said this as if it was a death sentence, his voice was so soft and tone uncharacteristically dark, even for him.
"Geez, man, don't make it sound like it's a death sentence. I mean, you wouldn't kill me unless you had to – right?" Yusuke said hopefully. A humourless smile passed over the fox's face.
"Of course not. But I am afraid that your life may not be the only thing that could die from this ordeal." He turned to Yusuke seriously, grasping his shoulders in the same feather-light grip as before. "I want you to know, before any of this even begins, that no matter what happens – you are always going to be a friend to me." Kurama's eyes fell as his head bowed. "You gave half your life energy for my sake. I'll never forget that. Neither will I forget the things you've taught me about humanity and the will to put others before yourself." Yusuke grew increasingly uneasy with all this. "But this – this isn't just a matter of pushing your buttons to see which goes boom, so to speak; Koenma has asked me to find out why you keep losing control – and in order to do that, I fear I must push you to and over the edge. More than once." Yusuke swallowed thickly, intentionally keeping his mind off of how cunning he knew the fox to be.
"And how will you do that?"
"I don't know as of yet. That's up to you and how well you put up with it." Yusuke did not like the way his eyes sharpened as he said that.
"But...I mean, you...You wouldn't hurt me any more than you needed to, right?" Yusuke was transforming from uneasy to frightened, though he tried his damnest to hide it. He knew exactly how ruthless Kurama could be, and didn't wish his friend's ire upon anyone – least of all himself.
"Of course I wouldn't – but I don't think you quite understand what sorts of things, exactly, I might have to do to you."
"Well, if you'd tell me – " Yusuke went to raise his voice, but immediately thought better of it when he seen the cold expression on the fox's face, his eyes piercing through Yusuke's very soul.
"I am dead serious, Yusuke." Growing a little too uncomfortable, Yusuke tried to back away from the fox, suddenly finding him much too close for comfort, but was halted by a nearly imperceptible tightening of his friend's fingers on his shoulders – the only warning he would get, he knew, if this was going to end badly. He was feeling cornered, and a cornered Yusuke was a dangerous one, demon or not.
"Kurama?" He pleaded quietly, confused and scared by this side of Kurama, which he had seen used against opponents, even Hiei, but which he'd gravely underestimated the paralyzing power of until it was turned on himself.
"I don't want to hurt you, Yusuke. But I will if I have to. I promise I will try to be as gentle as I can be – but the nature of what he has asked me to do..." He trailed off, breaking eye contact as a sad look came onto his face. "It means that there's a good chance you won't ever forgive me." The fox whispered, his whole posture wilting like a flower.
"Hey, now, don't talk like that," Yusuke reassured, placing his hands on Kurama's shoulders in a mimicry of his friends own pose. "I've gone through hell being trained by Genkai and by Raizen and his men; I've lived through the Dark Tournament twice, AND been in the Makai Tournament; I might not have won, but I survived against demons who were out to flay my hide and fry me up for supper." Yusuke laughed at himself, easing the poignant unease in the air. "You...you're a scary guy, don't get me wrong," He admitted nervously, " But you're still my friend. That means I trust you – and that also means that whatever pacifier-breath tells you to do me is okay by me; if you feel like you have to hurt me in order to stop me from hurting someone else – "
"Or yourself." Kurama interjected quietly.
"Yeah, well if you have to hurt me in order for me not to hurt you, then it's fine."
"Yusuke, I don't – "
"Well, until you can make me understand, I'm telling you that it's okay." Kurama looked up at Yusuke then, an uncharacteristic sort of mistiness in his eyes, the emotion strange on his usually impassive face. He let out a dry chuckle then, shaking his head.
"Even in the face of your own destruction, you still find it in you to care about me." He whispered. "I don't understand you, Yusuke."
"Yeah, well I don't exactly get you either, fox-boy." Both now smiling, Yusuke found it in him to laugh. Kurama smiled wider at this, taking it as both a good and bad sign of things to come.
"Maybe that's a good thing." He whispered. 'Good job, Yusuke. You've passed my first test already, and you didn't even know it. Unfortunately, it seems like your instincts will need to be stimulated by more drastic means, however – and I am not yet sure even you will have the fortitude for that.'
Feelings largely mixed, Kurama figured there was no harm in initiating the next phase of his tests – by far the easiest, but also likely the most harmful. With that, he leaned forward slowly, but confidently, until his forehead just barely touched Yusuke's shoulder.
"Kurama? You okay?" Yusuke asked. "You're acting kinda strange."
"I'm fine, Yusuke...just tired." 'Please don't hate me for this, Yusuke. I am just as scared as you...I don't want to hurt you – and I'm scared precisely because I do.'
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Mwahahahahahaha!
Next chapter will probably have some Yaoi in it – so you can all look forward to that! I will try to post within the next 2 weeks, but again, school...
Until next time!