I'm happy to see the reception this story has so far received. Already having drafts of many of the chapters to come already written out, I hope to keep the readers' waiting for updates at a minimum. Keeping that in mind, it's my pleasure to present Chapter II, "Snow."

Black Roses
Chapter II
Snow
July 20, 2006

Yukina looked over her shoulder apprehensively, having heard a noise. "Kazuma . . ." she murmured, clinging to Kuwabara.

"Don't worry, Yukina," he said. "I have it all under control-"

Suddenly the enemy attacked, bellowing a war cry and hurling his weapon at the couple. Yukina shrieked.

"Hey!" Kuwabara shouted. "No fair, Urameshi! She wasn't armed. Are you okay, Yukina?"

The ice maiden scrunched up her face while she wiped off the snow. "I'm fine, it's just really cold."

Kurama laughed a little, watching the snowball fight from Genkai's porch. "You should join them, Hiei," he told the barely visible shadow hiding among the branches of a nearby evergreen tree. "With your speed and agility, I believe you'd do well."

Snow fell from the tree as its branches began to sway, and Hiei materialized, glaring at Kurama. "I don't play games," he replied acridly, picking evergreen needles out of his clothes. "Why don't you join them?"

"I'm not up to games right now," the Fox replied.

"Hn." Hiei looked up one side of the porch and down the other. "What are you doing sitting here by yourself, anyway?"

"Same as you, watching our friends clobber each other with packed snow. Besides, I am not by myself. You're here, too."

"Hey Shrimp!" Kuwabara bellowed, seeing Hiei. "Think fast!"

Hiei turned his head to glare at Kuwabara, only to get a face-full of snow. He narrowed his eyes and began to growl. Kurama smiled, brushing spattered snow off of himself. "It's a game, Hiei."

"What's the matter?" the carrot-top taunted, jogging to the porch, a triumphant grin on his face. "You gonna melt?"

The Jaganshi reached for his katana; Kurama quickly grabbed his hand. "It's only a game," he reminded Hiei. And then he turned to Kuwabara, and said, "I don't believe Hiei's been snowballed before," with a sly smile on his face.

Kuwabara donned a face suggesting revulsion, while behind him Yusuke doubled over, laughing hysterically. "Sick!" he exclaimed. "Kurama, that's gross!"

"Whoo!" Yusuke howled, falling into the snow. "Aw man, I can't believe Kurama, of all people, said that!"

"Shut up, Urameshi!"

"You snowballed Hiei!"

Hiei rolled his eyes, and looked at Kurama. "Snowballing means more than throwing snowballs, I presume."

Kurama nodded, trying to hide his smile, and whispered into the Koorime's ear, "Snowballing is a sexual term. When someone performs oral sex on a man, instead of swallowing or spitting out the semen, they kiss the man and deposit it in his mouth." Hiei widened his eyes, and then glowered at Kuwabara.

"What does it mean?" Yukina asked innocently.

"Um, I'll tell you later," Kuwabara said. Hiei scowled.

"I should be going," Kurama announced, looking at his watch.

"All right," Yusuke said. "Don't disappear for six months or anything," he teased.

"That sounds like something you'd do, Detective," Hiei muttered.

The redhead smiled half-heartedly. "I'll try not to," he said, turning to leave.

Hiei eyed Kurama's backside as he descended the temple steps. "Why would he disappear for six months?"

Yusuke shrugged. "It was a joke, sort of." He shifted his weight. "You wouldn't get it; you haven't been around here lately."

"What would I not 'get'?"

Kuwabara scratched his neck. ". . . Let's just say that was the best mood any of us have seen Kurama in for a while. Of course, this was also the first time any of us have seen him in a few weeks."

"Where has he been?"

The carrot-top pressed his lips. "He's been around, but he's been . . . distant. He's acting like you."

"So, what's wrong with that?"

"Nothing, maybe- If you're a homicidal psychotic dwarf."

Hiei drew his katana. "Keep in mind that Kurama is no longer here to stop me from doing as I please," he growled.

"True," Yusuke said. "But there's plenty of Spirit and Demon World officials to deal with you afterwards." He raised his eyebrows. "Hey, you're an official, right? Would you have to punish yourself?" The Jaganshi glared while Yusuke grinned like an idiot.

"Hiei, why don't you talk to him?" Yukina suggested. "He seemed more like himself with you here."

Where was he? Hiei glanced at a street sign in passing. Not the street he wanted.

'Don't look for him at his mother's house,' Yusuke had told him. 'He won't be there.'

'He moved out last month,' Kuwabara had added. 'He has a place downtown now.'

Hiei did recall Kurama mentioning something about finding his own home. According to the others, he was living in an apartment not too far from the school he had attended.

It didn't take Hiei long to locate the neighborhood, and soon after that he found Kurama's new dwelling. The front yard was reminiscent of the redhead's former one, featuring a tree with a branch that stretched out toward the second story window. A perfect perch. He landed on it, slipping a little on bark made slick from snow and ice, and looked inside. Kurama was sitting with his back to the window, working on a computer. Oh, yeah. That was his job now.

A cracking noise shifted Hiei's attention skyward. That noise, what was it- a bird, perhaps? No, he had never heard a bird make that sort of noise before.

"Stalking me, Hiei?"

"Hn?" The Koorime looked away from the sky, forgetting the noise, and to the now-open window where Kurama stood.

"I saw your reflection in the monitor screen. I apologize if that foils your intentions to spy."

"Why would I?" he retorted. "All you're doing is boring Ningen things."

Kurama laughed a little, nodding in agreement. "It can be tedious."

"Then why do it?"

"I choose to," he replied straightforwardly.

What a waste, Hiei thought. He looked up, hearing that cracking noise again. What was that?

Kurama heard it, too, and also looked up. He widened his eyes. "Hiei, move."

"What?"

"Move."

"Why?" he demanded, as the sound suddenly grew louder.

Crrrack! A branch higher up, heavy with ice and snow, splintered away from the rest of the tree. It hung from a thin strip of bark for a moment, and then fell, striking Hiei in the head on its way to the ground. The Jaganshi stumbled, his face blank, and plunged head first to the snow below.

He lay face down, stunned at first, but then picked himself up, spitting snow out of his mouth and rubbing his now numb face. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that Kurama was now standing on the front steps, staring at him. "Shut up," he said, sure that the redhead was going to laugh.

"Are you all right?" Kurama asked, without even a bare hint of a smile on his face.

"I'll live."

"Are you bleeding at all?"

"I'm fine!" he snapped.

The Fox ignored Hiei's agitation, and despite being barefoot stepped into the snow and examined his friend closely. Hiei growled when Kurama, without asking permission or saying what he was doing, tilted the Koorime's head upward. "Follow my finger with your eyes."

"Why?"

"Just do it." He held up his index finger and began moving it this way and that. Hiei followed it, lips curled in a silent snarl at Kurama. "Are you satisfied?" he demanded when Kurama released him.

"You appear to be all right," Kurama said.

"Which is what I already told you," Hiei retorted.

Kurama shivered a little, wishing now that he had thought of shoes. "Come inside," he said to Hiei, who followed him indoors.

Hiei examined the apartment's interior. They stood in the living room, and beyond that he could see the kitchen and a bathroom. To his left stood a flight of stairs leading up to the second story. It wasn't too different from the other house, except significantly reduced in size. "Neat," he said sarcastically, referring to the disorderly arrangement of furnishings and boxes.

"I'm still settling in," Kurama explained. "Slowly."

"No, really?"

The Fox laughed. "Does your head hurt? I can get you an ibuprofen."

"You don't-." He rolled his eyes as Kurama fetched the medicine anyhow. ". . . Have to," he finished, while the redhead presented him with two pills and a glass of water.

"Hiei, you were talking to me, fell out of my tree, and landed in my yard. Yes, I do have to. Besides, it's common courtesy." He motioned for Hiei to follow him upstairs.

Kurama led Hiei into what the Koorime supposed would eventually be a study, once the bookshelves were filled and the boxes cleared out. "I just completed this," he said, showing Hiei the computer.

The screen featured a simplified maze, and bright-colored globs chasing a blue circle. "What is it?"

"Pac-Man. It's a game."

". . . Did you make it?"

"No, it's an old game. However, Pac-Man," he pointed to the hungry circle, "is usually yellow."

"You changed its color."

"It's harder than it sounds. It requires knowledge of code and how to change code."

"This is for your job?"

"I . . . wouldn't call it my job, per se, but yes."

"Invigorating."

"We can't all be a warlord's right hand."

"You could have been," he pointed out. Kurama didn't reply. He stretched, and out of the corner of his eye he saw the tree. "Malevolent piece of lumber," he muttered.

"Would you like to play?" Kurama asked suddenly.

"What?"

"Here." The Fox gave Hiei his chair. "You are Pac-Man. Your objective is to eat all those dots, and to avoid being eaten by the ghosts." He pointed to the globs. "You use these to move." He showed Hiei the arrows on the keyboard.

Hiei played a round, and another, and another. He hadn't realized how much time had passed until Kurama tapped him on the shoulder and asked him if he would like some soup, having brought up two bowls. As he sipped his, he realized that between telling him how to play Pac Man and offering him food, Kurama hadn't uttered a single word. "You're so quiet," he observed.

"Pardon?"

"Usually you would have coerced me into conversation by now."

"I . . . thought I had," the Fox replied, draining his soup bowl.

"Have you been avoiding the others?"

"What?" Kurama frowned. "Who said that?"

"They did, sort of."

"I see." His frown grew more distinct. "It's not what they think. I'm not going out of my way to avoid anyone, I've . . ." He shrugged. "I've wanted solitude lately, to meditate on some matters." The Fox leaned back in his seat, lapsing into silence again.

Hiei wondered if that was why Kurama had moved out of his mother's house, and what these 'matters' were. He glanced at his friend, who was staring into the bottom of his bowl.

"Something's wrong. You're not your annoying self. Are you sick?"

Hiei left the florist's, clutching his flowers. It had grown colder, and snow was beginning to fall from the sky. He shook his head as the flakes began to accumulate in his hair.

Taking the possibly slippery conditions into account, and not wanting to risk startling the people he was sure he would see, Hiei opted to travel at a human's pace. He knew of a bus stop a block away.

The cold bit at him, and he clutched his bouquet closer, hoping that the temperature didn't cause any harm to the roses. He wanted them to be in decent shape when he arrived at the . . .

His vision grew blurry, and he was thankful for the weather. If any passersby looked at him, all they would see was a man with snow in his eyes.