Disclaimer: All fandom-based and real-life entities, including other art and literary works mentioned in this piece do not belong to the author with the exception of original characters, plot, and subplots. The views and opinions of the characters do not necessarily reflect that of the author.
Zwischenzug
by four-eyed 0-0
Part VI
"Each thing needs other things—once called 'the sympathy of all things.' Attachment is embedded in the soul of things, like an animal magnetism."
― James Hillman, Cosmos, Life, Religion: Beyond Humanism
o-o
Butterfly
"That's unnecessary," said Aoshi, taking the avocado he was about to peel and the knife he held. She placed the fruit on top of the cutting board and swiftly sliced it in half, leaving the seed intact that it dislodged from one of the halves.
She then handed the fruit and knife back to him. "Now scoop out the seed then slice the mesocarp with the peel on. There's less chances it would slip your hold and much less of killing yourself."
Kurama smiled at her before taking care of the other avocados. She whirled around to turn to the stove and attend to the chicken, humming a familiar tune under her breath.
"Is that the same song from Kabukicho?" he asked as he transferred the diced avocados into a bowl.
She heard the amusement in his voice. "Listen, I know I'm not the best vocalist in town but I implore you not to make fun of me."
"But I didn't say anything."
"There was an implied mockery."
"Ad hominem."
"Shut it. Just pretend you don't hear anything."
Kurama smiled to himself.
o-o
"Don't. Be. So. Freaking. Difficult."
Chiaki let go of the branch that refused to fall from the trunk, dangling by a few stubborn fibers. She braced herself for another blow by the machete, ready for the strike that would hopefully deliver the branch to the ground.
Heaving a deep breath, she swung the machete—
She couldn't swing the machete. She tugged for the instrument poised over her shoulder. It wouldn't budge. Nothing.
"Professor, if I may."
She turned her head to find Kurama pinching the blade with his fingers with a calm expression that told her negating her ultimate blow was a piece of cake to this girly man. Her taking the offense notwithstanding, she sighed, exhausted from her hopeless attempt at pruning the infestation-susceptible maple. Chiaki let the machete drop to her side.
Kurama stepped forward and raised his hand. A flick of his wrist and the three-foot blackened branch fell onto the grassy soil with an empty crack of twigs and leaves.
"Thanks," she said, wiping the sweat on her forehead. "But you didn't have to help me."
He cocked his head to the side. "I didn't. I was merely concerned about the tree. I could hear it crying murder all the way from the front porch."
Chiaki glared at him. "Now then, Kurama, why don't you clean this up for the tree as well?" she said, indicating the fallen leaves and twigs. "And give the branch a proper burial while you're at it."
Kurama's face fell and Chiaki walked away, a self-satisfied smirk on her face.
o-o
"Check," said Aoshi as she moved her knight to G3.
Kurama matched her using his rook.
She frowned at the chess board. "Stalemate," she declared, rolling to lie on the floor on her stomach. "Again."
"Does that upset you?"
Her muffled reply came in haste. "Kind of."
Kurama replaced the pieces back into the board. "May I ask why?"
"I saw what you did," she said, wriggling to jerk the cushion from her knees and rest her head on it. "You could've checked me many times. But you did something else and we always ended up in stalemate."
He knew she was more than perceptive. The professor had clearly mastered chess but it wasn't enough for her to win against him.
Truth was, he liked to play chess with her quite so that he'd rather keep a game going than driving her king to jeopardy as soon as he saw an opening.
"So you noticed. Have I offended you?"
She didn't answer right away, leaving the question hanging in the air. She rolled over and looked at him from her reclined position.
"It's strange. If this had previously happened, I would've taken offense but now… It's weird, it doesn't bother me that much."
Comprehensible was her point, and while Kurama would have liked to address solely this concern, her vulnerable position on the floor unsettled him slightly. Apparently, the professor had begun putting a little faith in him—albeit a little too much too soon.
It was what he thought her actions implied—she didn't immediately jump to the conclusion that he was jesting as he usually did and she had put herself in a compromising position in front of someone who was capable of taking advantage of her.
Not that he would do that. It was against his morality.
And he respected her decision to not accept him. But he would wait.
"Are you trying to make me feel better about myself?" she asked, pouting.
Kurama scratched at his temple. "Is there any reason for me to do that?"
She rolled her eyes. "Oh, I don't know. Probably because I rejected you and you don't intend to give up."
"The rejection doesn't matter to me given the technicalities of our situation, but indeed, I have no intention of giving up," he said, smiling at her.
The natural rosy color of her cheeks burnt deeper, and she pushed herself off the floor. "I'm… going to get some fresh air, yes, that I'm doing."
She scuttled out of the room, shutting the door with a loud thud.
He was positive she heard her curse under her breath before she bolted away.
o-o
"Chiaki, wake up."
Someone was violently shaking her. Someone was being too loud. Not now. She needed six hours of sleep.
"Oi, kiddo, get up. They're leaving."
She opened her eye a crack. The darkness resolved and she found Shizuru's face hovering above her, her straw hair sticking up at odd angles.
"Who?" said Chiaki.
"Yusuke and Kazu. And Hiei. And Kurama," said she.
Chiaki bolted upright. "Where?"
The elder Kuwabara rolled her eyes, as though she knew the mere mention of his name was enough to wake Chiaki. "Makai. There's a lead."
She threw her a panicked look before running out of the room and to the front porch. Shit, it's happening.
There in the darkness of the ungodly hour stood the four boys and Botan, all gearing up for this unexpected trip. Keiko and Yukina were standing in a corner, silently awaiting the portal with the team of detectives.
Chiaki's frantic, barefoot running slowed when Kurama caught her eyes. He smiled at her and her heart, for a vulnerable moment, skipped a beat.
"Do you know what you're up against?" she asked, walking up to the redhead.
He shook his head, still smiling.
They didn't know and Koenma would still be sending them away to be flayed alive? Chiaki was no stranger to what they were capable of, but "Makai" had a foreboding ring to it. To hell with their being demons—except for Kuwabara, that is, and that in itself was more grave a misfortune.
"Will you promise to come back fine?" she asked, trying to sound hopeful.
"Yes, Professor."
It wasn't good enough. "Do you promise?"
"I promise."
She smiled at him even when a stitch built up her chest. Even when he assured her he would be fine, it wasn't enough. She needed all of them back whole and alive. She doubted she could stand the sight of blood again.
Or the prospect of not seeing them again. Ever.
His hand found hers and it sent a painful spark up her whole body. He squeezed.
"Portal's here, boys," said Botan as a swirling vortex opened up in front of her, the moving air fanning against her blue hair.
"I'll see you," he said before letting go and turning his back to her.
The image of his retreating jacketed back draped with the darkness pinched something inside Chiaki. A feeling of uncertainty, dread, and oblivion rose up like bile inside her that she stepped forward and reached for his sleeve.
She didn't know when she started fearing for his life. She didn't know when she started thinking of him as more than a partner in crime. She didn't know for sure why she forced him to look at her and bend down to her.
But she gave him a parting gift to take with him, to let him know that he was important.
With her lashes against his cold cheek, she blinked once, twice… three times.
When she pulled away, he asked, clearly bewildered, "What was that?"
She smiled. "It's a butterfly kiss. You'd think by now somebody would have given one to freaking plant boy. But then you realize the world is full of idiots."
The usual calm of his face dissipated, replaced by a smile that grew and he chuckled. "Thank you."
"Go," she said, releasing his sleeve and gently pushing him away.
This time he didn't turn back after nodding briefly at her. This time she didn't feel afraid, not when he stepped into the vortex, not when he disappeared in front of her eyes. Chiaki felt the promise he gave her was validated.
Shizuru walked up to her. "What was that?"
Chiaki shook her head, the smile never leaving her face. "Would you believe if I tell you I don't know?"
And she left it just at that, without knowing. For the first time it didn't perturb her.
Being oblivious, that is.
o-o
"Stop grinning like an idiot," said Yusuke as soon as their feet landed on the familiar Makai soil.
Kurama caught himself smiling indeed and he wiped it from his face, trying to regain mastery of himself.
"The fox is smitten!" said Kuwabara, laughing as he clapped Kurama on the shoulder.
Yusuke rolled his eyes. "It's the corniest kiss ever. A butterfly kiss? What the heck?"
Kurama brushed off Yusuke's mockery. "You're only saying that because Keiko never gave you one."
Kuwabara's guffaw was loud enough to echo through the deserted plain of olive green grass and stones, sending off birds flying from the scantly distributed trees.
"Run!" yelled Yusuke before the four of them dashed due north, toward Mukuro's lair.
o-o
"Botan, I know I'm being a bother but is there any news?"
Chiaki was listening, trying not to add to the tense atmosphere in the room. "I'm sorry, there's none."
It was the second day since they'd gone, she counted. Two days and six hours, to be exact.
Jin growled when his ninja fell down again against Chiaki's, relinquishing his hold on the joystick in upset. But she couldn't cheer at her victory and along with the trumpet sound emanating from the dated television and game set.
Her thoughts were far too occupied for her to feel anything remotely good at the moment.
"Keiko, they'll be safe. They've been through worse and you know that."
It was a shame Chiaki could only imagine what "worse" had been like for the team. For Kurama.
It was difficult to rely only on theory, on intuition. But right now, it was all that she could afford to do.
She turned to the hunched form of Keiko sitting in a corner with Botan. "Keiko, come play with me?"
The poor girl smiled wanly at her before rising to claim the spot Jin had abandoned for the spectator's corner of Suzuki and Touya's chess game.
o-o
"I'm starving," said Yusuke from his dark perch in the small hollow of a rock by the river bend that they'd taken as temporary refuge while they awaited a signal from Yomi's troops.
Kuwabara shook out an onigiri wrapped in a bamboo sheath from his small duffel bag and handed it for the ailing detective to take. Yusuke embraced his best friend, praising him for his magnanimity.
"Idiots," said Hiei.
While Kurama thought Kuwabara would retaliate with a less effective retort, he was proved wrong when another onigiri was thrust under Hiei's nose. The fire demon eyed the meal for three seconds before snatching it and disappearing in a blur to eat his treat elsewhere.
Kurama chuckled silently, declining Kuwabara's subsequent offer. He wasn't hungry. It wasn't a matter of nerves. He was plainly uninterested in nutrition at the moment.
It had been a day since they left Mukuro's headquarters and journeyed to the west coast of this small, inconspicuous island that turned out to be an underground research center. While the Makai government was far from becoming centralized, it was agitating how this large-scale subservience escaped notice of the federal military units.
Since then they had waited for the troops' deployment to serve as cover to the four of them.
Kurama studied the map they had been given, reviewing the tactic they had concurred to follow.
After a few short breaths in rhythm with the steady downstream flow of brackish water against the riverbed, his earpiece buzzed and he sat up, exchanging glances with his teammates.
"This is squad three leader. Prepare to dispatch in two. Do you copy?"
"Copy that, roger," said Yusuke.
The line went dead and Hiei reappeared in front of them, already through with his quick meal. Kurama turned to his watch.
"Are you excited?" said Yusuke.
Kuwabara's momentary shiver didn't go unnoticed. "I think I'm going to puke," he said, turning to the three of them. "But I'll see this through."
"That's the spirit," said Yusuke, grinning.
"Thirty seconds," Kurama said.
The moment the second hand on his watch hit the mark, the four of them burst out of the hollow and into the Makai night. Yusuke and Hiei led the group, gravitating towards the leeward side of the densely grassy hill and down its steep slope.
They stealthily waded through the tall, red grass and changed positions, so Yusuke and Kuwabara brought up the rear as Hiei and Kurama covered for them within the last two hundred meters from the marble-white facility that was at least ten floors high and a hectare in area.
The four of them rounded the chainlink fence topped with barbed wire, finding the east gate as instructed.
The gate had been left open for the four of them to pass through, and Kurama set his whip at the ready as they charged in through this side entrance with the metal doors pulled up. They caught the rear of the second squad covering for them, and the four of them followed their track silently as they turned a corner.
A series of deserted white and dimly-lit passages they passed with little care and they arrived at a large room, taking them all aback.
"Shit," said Yusuke under his breath.
o-o
"I'm bored," said Chiaki, rolling on the floor after defeating the final boss of the game she'd been playing since the other day.
She was thankful for the distraction the game console had offered. Earlier, Rinku had thrown a fit upon his loss and chased Shishiwakamaru through the forest and back, returning with an injured bird Yukina healed with tears that had turned into gems, much to Chiaki's surprise.
All of it was a welcome distraction, really.
It had been a week since the four boys went away. Chiaki had managed to do every single chore she could have thought of—except for climbing the roof and wiping the tiles clean; she wasn't that mad to go dancing on the roof and kill herself.
Keiko joined her on the floor and the two of them stared at the ceiling for a long while without saying anything.
"How do you deal with it?" asked Chiaki, giving in to the desire to ask.
"With Yusuke always out and about?" said Keiko. "I'm not really sure, Chiaki."
"But you've been doing it for so long, surely you must know."
A heavy sigh. She'd been hearing a lot of it from the younger girl the past week. Come to think of it, she'd been sighing a lot herself, too.
"Perhaps I got used to his absence," she said, her voice weak. "After all, he always made sure to come back to me."
There was something about the words she used and the way Keiko said it that tugged at Chiaki's heart. "You must have so much faith in him, then."
"Not at all," she said. "It's the other way around."
Chiaki turned her head to look at Keiko. "What do you mean?"
"We've been like this for almost eleven years now, you see. I wait for him to return every time he goes. And each time I could have gone and left him… There's a bigger world out there for me to enjoy," she said before twisting her body to turn to Chiaki. "But he only has me to come back to. Not his mother who was never down the road to betterment and certainly not his father. Only me—Kuwabara, too—, and he never, for a single moment, thought otherwise."
Keiko's eyes glistened with tears and Chiaki reached out to touch her hand. She was right. From what she'd been told, Urameshi had every right to stay in the Makai but he chose to be with Keiko and Kuwabara, the only reasons he had to endure his complicated case of dual citizenship and identity.
"But you never ran away, right?" said Chiaki, squeezing Keiko's hand. "You never did when you had the chance. Isn't that a display of faith in him as well?"
Two drops of tears escaped Keiko's eyes. "I'd like to believe so, Professor."
"You should, Keiko. The both of you trust each other so much it would be difficult to question the extent of your love for each other," said Chiaki, smiling. "Mutual trust is the basic foundation of any relationship, right?"
Keiko wiped her tears away and nodded, returning the smile with one of her own.
A few moments of silence and Keiko spoke.
"I've been meaning to ask," she began, biting her lip. "Who is Kurama to you, Professor?"
Her throat had run dry. Keiko's question caught her off guard.
She hadn't thought of it. She'd been trying to occupy herself with every possible activity to pass the time and not think of him or Isamu.
Especially him, she figured with a stitch to her chest.
"I… This is going to sound stupid but… I don't know."
She didn't. Because currently, Isamu sat in her heart and refused to budge, to become a distant memory, to be buried in the past.
"Is it because of Mr. Urawa?"
She nodded. "He wouldn't leave me alone, you know? It's like he doesn't want me to forget."
A slight pressure on Chiaki's hand was Keiko's response, urging her to continue.
"Every time I think of Kurama, Isamu would just knock somewhere in my head again. He doesn't want me to completely let go of him, Keiko."
"I don't think anyone would want to be forgotten, Chiaki. Not you, not me, and not even the deceased. But it doesn't mean they have to constantly bother us," said Keiko, smiling tightly. "And it doesn't mean we have to remain hung up on their fates and their passing. That would be no different from forgetting how to live."
"But I still love him, Keiko." Chiaki was sure of it. She truly believed in it.
"You do, and I can see that. You love him like you did yesterday and years ago. You love him like you always have. Love is constant and there is no way you can undo that, but you have a chance to start a new kind of love," Keiko said.
"The kind that would last and be spent with someone you see yourself with every day of your whole life. The kind of love you will enjoy in silence and in sound. The kind that is steady and faithful, the kind willing to lay down everything to keep it strong. Don't you think that after all that you've suffered you deserve that kind of love? Wouldn't Mr. Urawa want you to experience that?"
Did he? Do you, Isamu?
"I'm not saying this because I'm his friend but… Chiaki, I've never seen Kurama the way he is when he's around you. There's a new kind of life to him when you shut him down and talk back to him, when you treat him with your silence. No woman has been able to play his games without requiring years of picking up things about him—and it takes a lot to fully grasp his character. But you did… somewhat. Like you had a prior connection and you only had to meet.
"But he's just as complicated a case as Yusuke and I don't want you to feel the way I always do."
Chiaki couldn't say anything. She didn't feel like she had to.
"I guess all I'm saying is that you can try."
"And you're warning me against it as well," she offered.
Keiko nodded.
Chiaki understood. For the first time in a month, she felt a lot better. The weight bagging down her chest had somehow become lighter, and she could almost hear Isamu throwing a sarcastic, "I'm not a charity case," toward her way.
She rose up. "You know what, why don't we have karaoke? I'm going to prepare mango shake for everyone."
"Great thinking," said Keiko as she too sat up. "I'm going to ask the boys to set up the machine."
An hour later they were all set in the recreational room, mango shakes in hand.
"Who goes first?" asked Keiko.
"I will!" Suzuki said, flipping his tall blond shock as he took the mic from Keiko. Punching a code from the song book, he set himself in the center of the room, poised like an aspiring model.
The first notes echoed through the anticipative silence.
And Suzuki, the vain demon, started to sing: "My pledge of love cannot be broken."
Chiaki had to admit, he had a lovely low register.
But his movements she found superfluous. The rest of her companions seemed to agree, as they all dissolved into a laughing fit, unnoticed by the performer.
The next minutes easily became the most fun she'd had in a week, and in no time she was rolling on the floor in uncontrolled laughter. It soon became apparent that the karaoke challenge was no different from besting each other in singing horrid tones.
Chiaki was then hoisted up from her lounging by an excited Jin who shoved the mic to her hands, which she took with grace and a smug expression.
"Yeh're inteh heavy metal?" said he, as soon as the title and artist of the song of her choice flashed onscreen.
She only pursed her lips and faced the television screen, tapping her feet in the rhythm of the drumbeat. She opened her mouth to start singing.
"THIEF IN THE MIRROR!" she was screaming into the mic, jumping in the air like there was no tomorrow, miming the lead guitar.
Her heart flew from her chest, out in the open for everyone to see as they laughed at her audacity. This was her in her daftest—in her most rabid Aphasia fan mode. Yelling beautiful lyrics in rotten notes. She was no musical prodigy and she could live with it.
Another repeat of, "Thief in the mirror!" and a door slid open.
"We leave your for days and this is what you do?"
Chiaki dropped the mic. No pun intended.
Urameshi was standing on the doorway, a fake scowl on his face. Slowly, Kuwabara showed his tall form. And the midget.
And Kurama, smiling at her in greeting.
o-o
From the moment their feet touched the soil in the front lawn, he knew Aoshi was the major contributor to the cacophony that in the moment seemed to have surpassed the shock brought about by their findings from their venture. Yusuke had thundered down the hallway in mock irritation, and the three of them followed, curious as to the nature of the bedlam that had beset the temple.
Part of his functional brain told him Genkai was rolling in her grave.
Keiko burst out of the room to floor Yusuke with an embrace. Kuwabara stepped over, heading straight for his beloved Yukina, receiving a smack upside the head from his ignored sister. Hiei vanished after making sure Kuwabara didn't so much as touch his twin in a less acceptable manner.
Aoshi was rooted to the center of the room, the microphone fallen from her hand. Her eyes were fixed on him, steady but still searching, probing if he was real.
His smile widened and she snapped out of her trance, fidgeting from where she stood before she slowly walked up to meet him.
"You asked for me?" he said as she continued to stare at him as though making it out alive was a miracle in and of itself.
"Huh—oh," she muttered in a second of confusion and realization. "No. Don't get ahead of yourself."
Kurama's smile didn't leave his face. "You missed me."
Her nostrils flared and she rolled her eyes. "For your information, the song was not rendered for you."
"I know, Professor. You've made it clear the first time."
She growled and turned her back to him to head back to the room. Kurama followed her, and the group assembled to hear their story.
He made sure to sit next to her. She inched away and he closed the gap. She tried to crawl farther but the wall wouldn't allow her. Kurama threw a smile her way, cocking his head to the side.
"You're not being cute."
"I'm not trying to be."
Yusuke clapped his hands to call for attention. Aoshi sat up straight and turned to the mazoku, all eyes and ears. Kurama copied her.
"They're cloning these half-demons," said Yusuke without preamble. Aoshi stiffened. "The originals have been developed since who knows long and we found some traces of—what was that, Kurama?"
"Stem cells," he said. Aoshi turned to him, her expression an odd mix of horror and fascination. "Which came from the first line of descendants from a successful fertilization of a female demon's ovum with a male human's spermatozoon."
She covered her mouth, turning paler than she already was. His arm wanted to snake around her, but he fought back the urge.
"How did you know which species was the mother and father?" she asked slowly.
"We found the pregnant body of a mother, and since no human would be able to carry a creature as unique as those hanyou for the whole gestation period, we derived our conclusions."
"What of the child she carries?"
Kurama broke the fact to her gently, remembering the state of the body thrown in the midst the gigantic tubes and incubators that held developing clones. "They were both dead. Dispatched of."
A series of disagreeing and shocked reactions followed. Aoshi's eyes dropped to the ground.
"We are way behind them," said Yusuke. "While we're sniffing after their trail, they've gone up and down the next mountain ahead."
It took a charged silence and a few moments of holding their breaths before Aoshi perked up and gasped.
"You said the remnants of the half-demons were scrutinized in the laboratory?" she asked, turning to him then to Yusuke.
"Yes," Kurama replied.
"Did they perform genomic sequencing?"
"I believe so," said Kurama.
Aoshi bit her lip, her hand shaking as she gripped her shorts. "Did they find any particular sequence dictating the creatures' predisposition to a particular dominant sacred energy? Like Urameshi's atavistic genes?"
Yusuke's mouth hung open, unable to catch the professor's meaning.
"Should they?" asked Kurama.
Her eyes locked with his and her pupils dilated even with the afternoon sun streaming from the panels. "If what I'm thinking is true, then yes, they should."
"What are you talking about?" asked Yusuke, his confusion brought out to the fore.
"Demons and humans have unique genomes," said Aoshi, by way of explanation. "As in, the complete set of chromosomes each species should have. Humans—the Homo sapiens species like me, Kuwabara, Keiko and Shizuru—only have forty-six chromosomes in our genome. Other species of humans like Homo erectus and Homo habilis have different numbers of chromosomes."
Everyone was now listening with rapt attention. Kurama's chest fluttered at Aoshi's ability to draw anyone to hear her lecture despite the morbid context the professor had to deliver it in.
"Demons are of different species as well. Take yourselves for example. Kurama: fox; Yukina, an ice maiden, and Touya of close elemental disposition but of different descent and ancestral history; Jin being—I dunno, a unicorn?"
"Professah, yeh're not being noice," Jin said, grumbling.
"Sorry, your species slips my mind," said Aoshi. "But you get my drift?"
The room occupants gave their versions of assent.
"And while you guys have different manifestations of youkai, you all have the same basal sacred energy—that is, youkai. And us humans, reiki. Though clearly, Kuwabara and Shizuru are predisposed to be more aware or capable than others in using theirs.
"As for the case of Urameshi, genes from both his demon and human ancestors contribute to his reiki and youki—and his control of both. What I'm trying to get at is that there's a genetic explanation as to why a human is a human and a demon is a demon."
She turned to Kurama. "And if this theory is what they're going by, then anyone who carries a favorable gene is an advantageous source of power."
Kurama froze. His hand reached for his stomach on its own volition.
Aoshi's eyes widened. "You were attacked?" she asked, turning to Yusuke then back to him.
She was too perceptive.
"Yeah," said Yusuke, unable to understand. "But we kicked their ass."
"But they managed to wound you!" said Aoshi, visibly shrinking at the moment. "And the previous attacks you responded to—!"
"Professor, please calm down," Kurama said, trying to take control of the situation.
She caught his sleeve. "Do you understand what they're capable of?" she said, her eyes unsteady and searching for a lie in his.
He did, and he was, for the first time, afraid.
"I don't get it," said Kuwabara. Yusuke seconded him with a fervent nod.
"Professor Aoshi posits that they had been targeting the four of us all along, that the attacks were all orchestrated to obtain our DNA," said Kurama. Her hand clutching at his sleeve visibly shook.
"But he said I had to find you," she was muttering weakly that he was the only one who heard. "Did he want me to betray you? Did he betray me again?"
Her voice broke that she squeaked the last words of her incoherent mumbling. Kurama turned to Yusuke.
"We'll reconvene later. I need to speak with her. For now, please let Yukina attend to your injuries and have some rest."
His friends left the room, too confused they didn't bother asking a single question more.
Once alone and the footsteps had faded in the background of her grinding teeth, Kurama pulled her limp and shivering form to his bandaged torso veiled from her sight by his black button-down shirt.
"He didn't," he whispered to her ear, rubbing her back. "He didn't betray you and you didn't betray us."
"Yomi was right. I'm merely a pawn," she said to his neck, her ragged breath hot to the skin protecting his jugular vein, which at that moment pulsated with renewed, nervous vigor.
"You're not," he said, much more firmly. "Yamamoto wanted you to find us so we would know what we're up against. Without you we would have never been able to tell. We need you and he knew that, do you understand?"
She shook her head, and her hold of his sleeve transformed into a desperate clinging. He continued whispering words of comfort that were neither masked nor false—that there was no regret in finding her when he did, that she had served a far greater purpose than she was aware of.
His subtle ministrations instead induced a quiet sobbing from her, and his neck became her pillow, his shirt her blanket. He let her do what she had to until she had exhausted herself, her sobbing reduced to sniffles and shallow drawing of breaths.
All the while, he rubbed at her back and breathed in the scent of lily-of-the-valley shampoo from her hair—a smell he missed but would not admit to her aloud. Not now, not ever… with the latter being less likely.
For someone who refused to trust in men, her actions had otherwise attested to her faith in his sensibility. It lingered in his mind for the greater part of the moment she stopped weeping tearlessly and relaxed to his hold, finally adapting to the hollow that she was fated to fill.
In the silence they shared, Kurama understood why she had managed to secure her rightful place and stay to make her presence realized by someone as callous as him.
It had been a long while since he last felt that he could share his silence with somebody else without fear of disconnect. Words were his penchant, as games required words to be played well. But silence provided an entirely different dimension to his psyche—an indispensable find and sustenance to his nature—, and only someone with as strong a connection to this dimension as Aoshi was able to make him desire to spend greater portions of it with them.
Aoshi was one of the few. And as clueless as she was, he'd decided she would be his partner for a longer while, if not all her life.
She pulled away, covering her face with the hand that didn't grasp his sleeve. "Sorry," she said with a croak, her head bowed. "Your shirt's soaked."
"You're forgiven," he said, exacting a desired reaction—her looking up at him with red scleras and a congested nose. "Only if you stop doubting and begin having a little more faith."
Her eyes welled up with tears again and she cried a little more.
Kurama figured it was her way of acquiescing to his terms.
o-o
"Are you healed yet?" she asked him.
Somehow she'd ended up in his arms, trapped by his legs. She didn't find it in herself to protest. Since he'd held her, the thought of leaving his strong, lean arms unsettled her like a child losing hold of the hem of a parent's shirt amidst a throng of unknown faces.
His hot breath fanned next to her ear and she diverted her focus on the woody scent of him, completely different from what she'd expected.
She wasn't sure what she expected him to smell like after being away and chasing down evil people, though—id est, in his most natural state. Perhaps not something as masculine as the forest with a dash of musk. The scent of roses clung to him albeit more faintly than the first time she ever had the chance to inhale his scent, the first time she had been this close to him.
"It will heal," he said, avoiding her question entirely.
"You need to see Yukina," she said, inching away from him half-heartedly, not willing to escape from his hold but aware that he needed medical attention.
His hand lightly pressed against her arm to stop her from moving any farther while his other hand rested on his bent knee. Chiaki took it as a sign that he was not wholly ready to commit to holding her. Or at least that he was afraid to endeavor such.
Chiaki didn't mind if he tried.
"I'm partial to taking wounds to the stomach. This is nothing I can't resolve on my own."
"Your stomach must bear many scars, then," Chiaki said absently.
Kurama's chest shook with silent laughter. "There's no denying that."
"Your hand," she whispered harshly, sighting for the first time the small, minute marks and nicks on the hand that he didn't hold her with. She turned to his other hand, and it bore similar scar tissues.
It bugged her how she never noticed until now.
"There's a history to all of them," he said, taking her by surprise at this sudden disclosure. "My mother—my adoptive human mother—had scars all over her arms and hands."
She waited, listening to a tale he never had to tell but chose to.
"I was trapped in the body of a nine-year-old. Only a year more and I would have been able to recuperate completely to assume my demon form at long last. Until then, I never put myself out for her. She was of no use to me, you see," he said, his breath becoming steadily ragged. "One day I again decided to show that I was capable without her, to draw the line between her and Youko Kurama—I stood on top of a stool to reach the cupboards to retrieve some crockery for my gardening. But I was too small; I slipped and ceramic plates fell and broke on the floor. I soon could have injured myself beyond healing if not for Mother. She cushioned my head from the shards."
Chiaki held a gasp in, letting him continue.
"It was at that moment I decided I couldn't leave her. I must have gone soft, you could say that, but since that day I never hesitated to come to her aid—not when she almost fell from illness.
"These scars," he said, flexing his hands, "they're reminders of how weak I actually am. That I am partly human in essence no matter how I think otherwise. The wounds I have acquired from my battles and from less daunting tasks such as pruning the bushes that adorned the garden she was proud of are constant reminders of the pain that goes with seeing through what I've set my mind to do."
His words echoed through the silence, long after he concluded his story. Chiaki grappled for the right words but he didn't need any.
Instead she reached for her left sleeve and pulled it down along the strap of her brassiere. She looked up at him, pointing at the lightened, globular scar along the breadth of her scapula.
If there was any time she would tell him about it, it would be now. The butterfly had long desired to be set free and it wriggled in her chest, restless and hysterical.
"Ten years ago," she said when he lifted his eyes from inspecting the distended mark. "I was a senior in high school. My father, previously my childhood hero and the pride of the neighborhood for his being a police officer, had become a complete asshole. He drank, he gambled, he smoked—cigarette and pot. I turned to a rebellious daughter—I left my mother drunk in martyrdom with my eight year old brother crying and started living on my own. I managed, somehow. I wanted to show him I didn't need a shit like him.
"One night, I decided to go back for mom and Tetsuya. I pleaded with my mother but she said she wouldn't leave my father, that he needed her more than anyone, more than anything. I took Tetsuya with me but guess who it was waiting at the door."
She drew a sharp breath. The butterfly refused to sit still. She willed her tears to stay put.
"My father. With some goons. But he wasn't there to prevent me from going with my brother. He was standing with his back to us, facing the thugs and ready to kill. My mother started crying, and my brother, too. I took him to the back door but found another of the debt collectors waiting for us. There were gunshots from the front door. I've heard them before—my father kept his gun from his cop days and liked to give us demonstrations when he was pissed. I tried to fend off the asshole blocking our way, but he smashed a bottle and when I thought I was done, mom took the blow for me."
He didn't say anything, he only tightened his hold on her. But it didn't make her cry anymore. It was too painful she was numbed from the mere memory of it.
"I didn't know what else to do but hear her last words out—I scooped up Tetsuya, threw him on the bike, asked him not to let go no matter what, and drove away. But not even a minute later I heard another gunshot and felt the burn. My shoulder was on fire and Tetsuya was suddenly no longer clinging to me like his life depended on it. I braked so hard that the bike swerved and catapulted me into the air."
She closed her eyes. She would not cry. She wouldn't.
"I was out after that. The next moments were all a blur but I remember seeing my brother's small form on the dark pavement, facedown. I felt so cold. He wasn't moving. There were headlights and the police colors. They flashed and flashed until I knew nothing."
The butterfly was almost out.
"My father was nowhere to be found. But the bullets that killed my brother and almost did me, they were from his gun. I just knew."
She pushed her sleeve back, letting the butterfly flutter out of her, finally free from its cage.
It had taken so long for her to let it all out. Not even Isamu knew of the betrayal she suffered from the opposite sex. Perhaps it was the reason that he betrayed her as well.
But was it all he needed to hear for him to change the drastic course of their relationship? Was being a pitiful case necessary to secure a lasting connection with someone else?
Kurama's lips found her ear. "Now I understand. I'm sorry."
"Same here," she said quietly.
A/N:
* mesocarp – the fleshy part of a berry such as the avocado (it is a berry, taxonomically, while a strawberry isn't but contains many achenes, hence an aggregate fruit)
* Thief in the Mirror is a song by the Japanese heavy metal band Aphasia. I actually don't have any idea what the lyrics are about since they happen to be unsearchable via Google or Yahoo (a shame that I have to resort to such just to understand Japanese, I know) but I can hear the title from the YouTube audio… so there. I had a hard time looking for a suitable song, really. I was lucky enough to have found this gem. Check Aphasia if you understand Japanese! They sound amazing! (I'm a bit more avid a fan of ONE OK ROCK, by the way, and was very thrilled for their tour here in the Philippines last 19th of January, haha).
Once again, thank you to everyone who reviewed! You always make me feel complete! :) And thanks to everyone who added this story to their alerts and faves! :)
See you for the last three chapters! :)