Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ A New Dawn ❯ Strangers Like Me: Chapter 3 ( Chapter 4 )

DISCLAIMER: I own the plot.

 

AN: I actually have a LEGITIMATE excuse for not posting quickly this time, and that excuse is one I think many of you can sympathize with: FINALS. The big Kahuna. I hate them and I wish them nothing but ill and disease and death and destruction, but I am forced to speak socially with them and not rip them into itty-bitty pieces and pop them in the garbage disposal, so I haven't had time to update in a REALLY long time! So sorry, but that's just the way it is! I hate me not updating more than anyone else possibly could, though, trust me…

 

Let me just take a moment to apologize for this chapter, though. I know some people won't like the fact that it's comprised mostly of flashbacks, but the idea just jumped into my head suddenly and wouldn't leave, so that's how it turned out. I'm sorry if that bugs some people, but I can't change it now, and really, I don't want to, because I like it. Even so, I'm sorry if it disappoints some of you guys!

 

- - - - - - - - - -

 

Whatever you do,

I do it too.

Show me everything,

And tell me how.

It all means something

And yet nothing to me.

 

* * *

 

Suuichi “Kurama” Minamono put down his pencil with a sigh, having just finished a very long essay for his college lit class. He laid the sheaf of papers aside and turned to his next assignment—five chapters in his Japanese history book.

 

He was about to pick up the enormous text when his hand just kind of fell back to the desk, completely unwilling to do anything else.

 

But he really should finish his homework tonight…he would regret not doing it tomorrow, when he was stuck inside on a Saturday instead of out in the crisp winter air.

 

Nevertheless, he found his mind wandering, and after a few moment's valiant attempt to restrain it, he resigned himself to the inevitable propped his chin on his hand, and stared out his frosty window.

 

It was snowing, and the flakes falling gently outside were hypnotizing. Kurama—he had no idea how long he had been thinking of himself by that name, but it had started around the time he had met Hiei, he thought—stared out his window, thinking of nothing in particular.

 

“Suuichi, dear?”

 

Kurama dropped his hand and turned quickly as his mother opened the door to his room and stuck her head in. He smiled at her and said, “Yes, mother?”

 

“I just wanted to let you know I'm going to bed.”

 

“Oh. All right. Well, good night, then.”

 

“See you in the morning. And for heaven's sake, stop doing homework for a while.”

 

Kurama turned slowly back to the window as Shiori closed the door softly, and this time, his mind, moved by the sight and voice of his mother, drifted back to a certain turning point in his life…

 

* * *

 

I can see there's so much to learn.

It's all so close, and yet so far.

I see myself as people see me.

Oh, I just know there's something bigger out there.

 

* * *

 

Flashback—Five years ago—Saving Shiori

 

Kurama hurried down the deserted road. His eyes did not move right or left, but rather fixed themselves firmly upon the sidewalk in front of him. In his hand was a small round mirror, with a golden chain at the top. His face was very pale, and his eyes were oddly bright, but his jaw was set with determination. Whatever he was doing terrified him, but he was going to do it anyway.

 

“What're you doing, K'rama?”

 

Kurama stopped short, closed his eyes, and opened them very slowly. Damn. “Go back to my house, Hiei.”

 

There was a long silence, and then Hiei spoke, softly. “I thought you said you weren't going to do it.”

 

Kurama didn't turn around. He knew that if he saw Hiei there, watching him with big red eyes that would never again be quite as cold as they used to be, he could never be able to go through with this. After a moment, though, he said, “Hiei, you heard what you wanted to hear. I said that this was a last resort, and that I wouldn't do it until I had thought through every possibility. Nothing else. Well, I have exhausted every possibility, and I have reached the last resort.” His hand tightened on the mirror, and his knuckles turned white. “I'm going to the hospital now.”

 

Another silence. Then Hiei said, in a voice that was, shockingly, slightly pleading. “There's got to be another way. That's all there is to it.”

 

Kurama felt himself smile and was surprised. “You're stubborn, Hiei. Well, so am I. I'm doing this.”

 

And he kept walking. He didn't look back, but if he had he would have beheld Hiei, standing rigidly in the yellow circle of a nearby streetlight, his expression hooded and completely unreadable, but his small hands shaking very slightly.

 

--Later

 

Kurama sat in the surgically clean hospital waiting room, his pale hands folded in his lap, a small smile on his lips, eyes glazed over, giving him a half-bewildered look. He sat unusually still, without the fidgets and worried mutterings that the other inhabitants of the room seemed to find solace in. He seemed completely content, a fact which caused the ones nearest him to glance over with questioning gazes and wonder why he was even there. He silence and stillness seemed to disturb them slightly.

 

But Kurama noticed none of this. His body may have been sitting in the cold, unforgiving chair in the cold, unforgiving room, but his mind was far away, above the clouds, and his heart was light. He was free for the first time in years and no one had the slightest idea of it.

 

He kept reliving the last hour in his mind, wanting to keep every detail fresh. He never, ever wanted to forget this night.

 

He had not expected to be alive at this moment, while the doctors were telling his mother that she would go on living for a long, long time. He had taken the Mirror of the Forlorn Hope intending to strike a bargain with it—his life for his mother's. Indeed, he had planned on his own death. That had been why he'd decided to meet the black-haired Spirit Detective, Yusuke Urameshi, and tell him everything. He would not have done that, but for some reason he felt that someone should know why he had stolen the Mirror and caused so much trouble.

 

He had not counted on Yusuke Urameshi being the kind of boy he was, however. He had not counted on him being the type of person to feel sympathy for someone he didn't even know. And he had certainly not counted on him trying to sacrifice his own life to make one who should have been an enemy happy.

 

Urameshi's voice kept flashing through his mind. “I've already seen that once and I never want to see it again.” And then Urameshi had tried to get the Mirror to take his life instead of Kurama's, as payment for Shiori's health.

 

Kurama did not know what had happened after that. He thought the mirror had said something about letting both himself and Yusuke live, but then he must have blacked out for a few minutes. And when he had woken up, he had run off without a second's thought for Urameshi.

 

He would feel bad about that later, but right now his thoughts were crowded out by the knowledge that his mother was all right. Someone—and it would have to be admitted that that someone was mostly Urameshi—had saved her life…just when it was almost over.

 

And because of that, because of the overwhelming rush of joy and gratitude he felt toward Urameshi, and the lifting of a long, long sorrow, Suuichi Kurama Minamono now truly knew what it meant to be human.

 

It was a lesson he would never forget.

 

End Flashback

 

* * *

 

I wanna know.

Can you show me?

I wanna know about these strangers like me.

Tell me more.

Please show me.

Something's familiar about these strangers like me.

 

* * *

 

Hiei Jaganshi trudged slowly along the busy road toward Kurama's house. One watching him might have thought he was mentally unbalanced, for he was behaving very strangely indeed: ever ten steps or so he would shake his fist at the sky and mutter wrathfully under his breath, stopping as he did so; then he would wrap his arms around himself and continue at a half-run, before stopping again.

 

But really, all he was doing was cursing the weather, He did not like the snow. It was way beyond him why people like the Detective and the Fool—and even Kurama—liked that frozen, white water so much.

 

Hiei really couldn't understand why he didn't like snow more. For though he was half fire demon, he also had the blood of the Ice People in his veins. His own sister, one of the dearest people in the world to him, simply adored the cold. So why couldn't he bring himself to even tolerate it, or like it just a little?

 

It was a mystery he just couldn't seem to solve. He had been trying for years.

 

But he wouldn't even try tonight. At the thought of his sister, his mind, frantically seeking a distraction, any distraction or refuge, from the cold, drifted back…

 

* * *

 

Every gesture,

Every move that you make

Makes me feel like never before.

Why do I have this growing need to be beside you?

 

* * *

 

Flashback—Four and a half years ago—Rescuing Yukina

 

“Why am I playing messenger boy for the stupid little toddler?” Hiei groaned dismally, looking darkly at the unlabeled video tape in his hand.

 

“Because,” Kurama said patiently, “he didn't send you to Reikai jail when he could have.”

 

“If I had known that meant a constant source of blackmail, I would have told him to lock me up.”

 

“Hiei, why are you so worked up over this? It will take you thirty seconds to intercept Urameshi on his way to school. It's an easy job.”

 

Hiei sighed heavily. “It's having to do it that's killing me! I don't want to be the brat's lapdog anymore.” He held up the tape and examined it. “I wonder what's on this…”

 

“Don't even think of watching that tape, Hiei,” Kurama said, rather too sharply.

 

Hiei glared at him. “What's it to you?”

 

Kurama colored, obviously realizing that he had just gotten a little overexcited. “I just think you should keep out of it. We're almost home free! Don't complicate things with Koenma now, when we're so close to being free.”

 

Rather than convincing Hiei, this statement only made him more sullen. “Speak for yourself. I'm no closer to freedom than I was six months ago.” He gave another sigh, and held the tape up again, glaring at it as if it was personally responsible for the current state of affairs. “I guess I should get this to the Detective, then.”

 

Kurama looked distinctly relieved. “Yes, do that. I'm headed off to the Reikai directly after school. I'll see you there later?”

 

“As if I have a choice.”

 

--Later

 

Scarcely half an hour later, though, Hiei had forgotten entirely about Kurama, the Reikai, Koenma, Urameshi, and everything else he had been annoyed about. All of his focus was on one fact and one fact only: he had found his sister.

 

He had accomplished what he had been working on for nearly six years.

 

And he wasn't even happy about it.

 

Well, how could he be? She was being held captive. By a human. And he had a good idea of why, and that was what made him angriest.

 

His thoughts seemed all jumbled up, like a building after an earthquake. As he stood there, clutching the tape, having just left the house of the humans whose VCR he had just used without permission, a few pf his far-flung thoughts began to piece themselves together.

 

Kurama knew. He knew that Koenma had found Yukina, and he had known the contents of the tape, and he didn't tell Hiei, though he had promised to help him all that time ago, when the two of them had first met. He had betrayed Hiei, and broken his promise, and by all rights Hiei should have hated him for it.

 

But he didn't. His mind was too filled to let one more thing in. He only felt a dim curiosity as to why Kurama hadn't said anything, and that was quickly pushed away by the next coherent thought: the Detective was going for Yukina.

 

And with a little luck and a lot of stealth, so was Hiei.

 

Smiling a little now, he flitted off to deliver the tape to Urameshi.

 

--The next day

 

“And furthermore, you nearly killed a human. You knew he was human and you knew the consequences of your actions, and yet you did it anyway. Explain this to me, Hiei.”

 

Hiei leaned comfortably against the wall farthest from the toddler prince, arms folded, meeting Koenma's gaze unflinchingly, looking utterly relaxed about the whole situation. Indeed, he looked rather pleased with himself.

 

“He was torturing my sister,” he said lazily, his mind not really on the conversation at all, but rather on the memory of the crunch of bone under his hand as he sank his fist into the jaw of the worthless, lazy, self-absorbed, flea-bitten bastard, the feeling of meeting his sister face-to-face for the first time, and how much he wanted to confess to her that he was her brother. His thoughts on this were really much more important than Koenma's injured pride.

 

And then there was Yukina herself. Hiei didn't think he'd ever get over that.

 

If someone had asked him what he imagined his sister to be like, he would have said he expected her to be just like the rest of her race—cold and cruel and unfeeling. But she had proved to be exactly the opposite. She had looked so…broken, when Hiei got there, So sad and hurt and frightened. There had been burns on her hands and she had cried many gems, suffering so at the hands of the human billionaire that her mind seemed devoid of all thought of escape and she couldn't have left the place on her own if someone had killed all the guards and held the door open for her.

 

And yet, when Hiei had tried to take revenge on the man who had committed the heinous crime, she had practically begged on bended knee that he let the man go. She had cried over his suffering and completely discarded her own.

 

He had complied with her wish, of course, but it would be a very long time before he understood the whys and wherefores thereof.

 

End Flashback

 

* * *

 

Oh, these emotions I never knew,

Of some other world far beyond this place,

Beyond the trees, above the clouds,

I see before me a new horizon.

 

* * *

 

Flashback—Three years ago—Dark Tournament—Kurama vs. Karasu

 

By Kami, he is hot!

 

“Now really isn't the appropriate time to be thinking of that.”

 

Well, he is! Look at his eyes…and that hair…and the ears…

 

“Shut up! He could still die!”

 

Ha. Yeah. Right. He's in full demon form. Not likely. And you can't deny that he's hot!

 

“Watch me. He's our friend, you moron, and I refuse to allow you to mess that up now.”

 

Oh, you know you like him. You're a perv. Get over it.

 

On this note, Hiei shoved the voice in his head—which sounded suspiciously like Kurama and had for the last three or so years—aside—the others were probably wondering why he was talking to himself, anyway, if they could spare any attention for him—and refused to let it speak again, fixing his mind on the fight, which, fortunately, was interesting enough to crowd out his thoughts.

 

When Kurama had changed into his Yoko form, Hiei really had thought he had the battle won. With Kurama's energies spiking that high and the evil black haired crow Karasu's remaining exactly the same, the fight should have been in the bag. But while Hiei had been arguing with himself, the whole thing had taken a turn for the worse without his notice. At some point, Karasu's hair had turned yellow. Kurama had a gash in his cheek and his energy had lowered significantly. But he was still on his feet, at least.

 

Not for long, though, as it turned out. Hiei had no sooner completed the thought than Yoko suddenly wasn't Yoko.

 

Hiei wasn't sure what happened, exactly. One moment there was a battle going on and the next Kurama had been thrown into the wall of the ring.

 

Hiei's heart skipped a beat, and then stopped altogether, and he nearly cried out. He felt Yusuke look at him, but he didn't see the unusual look in the Detective's eyes because his entire being was focused on the cloud of dust enveloping the spit where Kurama had hit.

 

Then the dust cleared, and Hiei breathed again. Kurama was still standing. Well, okay, he was barely holding himself on his feet, and he was no longer in Yoko form, which made him considerably weaker, but he was up. That was something.

 

Yusuke looked over again. Hiei would have killed him if he had the thought to spare, but as it was, he didn't, so he contented himself with staring at Kurama until he had managed to drag himself back into the ring again and then throwing Yusuke a death glare worthy of King Yama himself.

 

The next few minutes seemed to last hours. Hiei felt a twinge of pain and a definite lurch in his stomach whenever Kurama was hit. Later he would analyze that feeling he barely recognized as fear for Kurama, but right now he just tried to ignore it.

 

But it flooded him when Karasu surrounded Kurama with his invisible bombs. At that point, the rest of the world narrowed obligingly down to Kurama and the invisible circle around him. Hiei wanted to shout and scream and go pull Kurama out of there to safety, but he did nothing because that would have been showing vulnerability. So he just stood there and waited, for those endless moments while Kurama stood perfectly still, trying to decide with to do.

 

He knew the decision Kurama had come to a split second before he went into action, and this time he actually opened his mouth to scream a warning, but too late.

 

Kurama moved.

 

The world went to slow motion. Hiei saw every drop of blood, every twist of Kurama's face, and felt like he was dying a thousand deaths. He certainly felt as if he was screaming, but no one was looking at him, so he must have only thought the screams.

 

He didn't even see the end of the fight. He didn't see Kurama's amazing use of his blood-sucking plant or Karasu's painful death because his mind was full of Kurama's blood and pain.

 

He didn't hear Yusuke's scream as Kurama fell to the ground, and lay still.

 

End Flashback

 

* * *

 

I wanna know.

Can you show me?

I wanna know about these strangers like me.

Tell me more.

Please show me.

Something's familiar about these strangers like me.

 

* * *

 

 

Flashback—Three years ago—Dark Tournament—Kurama vs. Karasu

 

Things felt…strange to Kurama. Some of his senses seemed dulled, but others seemed oddly sharpened. He couldn't make anything put even though his eyes were at least cracked open, but he thought he could hear every word from every person in the stadium. The commentary rang in his ears, shouting out that Karasu was down and so was he, but he didn't feel the slightest need to do anything to rectify the situation at the moment.

 

But he had to. Had to get up. Yusuke's shouts pierced the loud hum of voices, and Kurama couldn't stand the thought of making his friends even more worried than they must already be. He didn't particularly want to move and risk feeling the pain that was, for the moment, nothing more than a dull ache. But his human nature wouldn't allow him to stay there and let everyone worry over him.

 

He wasn't entirely sure how he ended up on his feet, but someone, he did. And surprisingly, the pain didn't explode like he thought it would. Unfortunately, this was balanced out by a huge wave of dizziness, which caused him to completely miss the call as he fought to stay standing.

 

And then Yusuke was there, and Kurama didn't have to worry about standing anymore. He leaned gratefully against his friend and allowed himself to be steered toward the edge of the ring.

 

As Yusuke set him gently against the ring, Kurama managed to raise his head for a moment. He looked past Yusuke's concerned face, to one certain little fire demon, the only one in the stadium who wasn't booing or cheering, but absolutely silent. Hiei stared at him, eyes wide, looking more shocked than he ever had. He looked as if he was going to cry or laugh or be suck or fall down and die right on the grass in the narrow stadium or possibly all of them at once.

 

Kurama wanted to get up, wanted to go over and do something. He wasn't sure what it was he wanted to do, except that it had to be something to get that look off Hiei's face. He felt a most peculiar sensation at the knowledge that he had scared Hiei, a feeling rather different than the one he got when he thought of frightening Yusuke, Kuwabara and the others, and he wanted to do something about it.

 

But all he ended up doing was smiling at Hiei as reassuringly as he could, before his head fell back against the wall he was leaning against and he fell into comfortable darkness.

 

But why did that darkness keep showing him Hiei's face?

 

How puzzling…

 

End Flashback

 

* * *

 

Come with me now to see my world,

Where there's beauty beyond your dreams.

Can you feel the things I feel right now, with you?

Take my hand.

There's a world I need to know.

 

* * *

 

“Almost there…almost there…almost there,” Hiei muttered, speeding up as he turned onto Kurama's street. He had no trouble keeping a fast pace this time, because he had the warmth of Kurama's room to look forward to.

 

As he half-jogged along the street, Hiei tried to remember how he had ended up here in the first place. He had been perfectly comfortable curled up in the branches of one of the evergreen trees in the park. It was warm up there, with all the leaves to shield him from the cutting wind. Of course, the needles and cones had caused a bit of discomfort, but Hiei could deal with that easily enough. Why did he leave that tree? What was with the sudden overwhelming urge to go to Kurama's house?

 

You know why, you idiot. Stop being so clueless, it's annoying.

 

“Shut up,” Hiei growled to the voice in his head. “I am tired of your existence!”

 

Well, you can't do anything about it now, can you?

 

“Stop laughing at me!!! Okay, fine, so I do know why I want to see him so much! But I don't care! I will not to anything about it! SO SHUT UP ALREADY!”

 

The voice in his head grumbled and fell silent, and Hiei forced it to stay that way as he finally, finally, finally turned into Kurama's driveway and went around the side of the house to the tree outside Kurama's window.

 

* * *

 

I wanna know.

Can you show me?

I wanna know about these strangers like me.

Tell me more.

Please show me.

Something's familiar about these strangers like me.

 

* * *

 

Kurama sighed heavily as a branch tapped against his window, rousing him from his daydreams. He had been thinking back to the Dark Tournament—why, he did not know—and while those memories were anything but pleasant, he did like remembering the old days, and he had not been able to do that in a very long time.

 

The tapping continued, more insistent this time, and Kurama sighed and turned to the window, thinking vaguely of using his energies to soothe the tree and still it.

 

What he ended up doing instead was leaping to his feet with a surprised cry and rushing to open the window. He helped a shivering, frozen Hiei into the room, all the time giving rushed apologies and inquiries.

 

“Why did you lock the window, fox?!” Hiei demanded, wrapping his arms around himself in an unusual show of vulnerability.

 

Kurama couldn't suppress a smile at Hiei's nickname for him, but his amusement was quickly dashed by a wave of guilt.

 

“I'm so sorry, Hiei,” he apologized. “I never dreamed you'd show up in this weather, so I locked the window.”

 

“You never lock the window, though.”

 

Only because I always hope you'll be coming.

 

“I do sometimes.” With that, Kurama pointed to the bed and said, “Sit. Warm up. What're you doing here, anyway?”

 

Hiei shrugged. “I just…felt like coming.”

 

But something in his eyes said quite differently, and that something caused Kurama to blush slightly and look away. “Hey, are you hungry? Mother has food downstairs.”

 

Hiei just shook his head, and Kurama shrugged. “All right, then. But I'm going to eat.” He could tell Hiei was hungry, and this ploy usually worked, he had found out. Hiei nodded, and Kurama said, “I'll be back in a minute, then.”

 

Down in the kitchen, Kurama put a couple of sandwiches, chips, chocolate and sodas onto a tray, and tried to calm his racing heart. He found himself doing that last part a lot when he was around Hiei…and he didn't exactly hate it, either.

 

He wasn't precisely sure when he had began to fall whole-heartedly in love with the little fire demon. Things had started off friendly enough seven years ago, and at first that was exactly what Hiei and Kurama were: friends.

 

Well, on Kurama's part, anyway. It had taken a lot of effort to win Hiei's trust. Kurama had fought tooth and nail for that. Well did he remember slowly wearing Hiei down with offers of food, talk, and constant company, feeding Hiei's extremely well-hidden starvation for affection so subtly that Hiei never even realized he was doing it.

 

It had taken almost two weeks for Hiei to even except food freely from Kurama, and much longer than that to get him to start talking in multiple complete sentences. The day Hiei had actually uttered the complete phrase, “I'm hungry, isn't there anything to eat here?” had probably been one of the best days of Kurama's life. He hadn't been sure why at the time, but it was becoming steadily clearer to him.

 

And thus, his dilemma: whether or not to tell Hiei.

 

The idea was tempting enough, sure, and he was fairly certain that Hiei felt the same way and had for some time, which did make him wildly happy at times, but…

 

The thing was, even if Hiei had changed in the past ten years—and there was really very little doubt that he had—there were things about him that would stay eternally the same, barring some disaster or catastrophe. And one of those things was his tendency to shy away from any obvious show of love or fondness. He himself had no idea how much he wanted and needed these things, and that made him shy of them. If Kurama did confess to him, the only thing that was likely to happen was Hiei's running away from it.

 

And Kurama really didn't think he could handle that. He couldn't lose Hiei's friendship because that had become more important to him than just about anything in the world, next to his mother's love.

 

Things were better this way. Kurama would just have to deal with Hiei's remaining his friend, and nothing more.

 

The mere thought made his stomach lurch with disappointment and sadness, but he pushed the feelings away, reminding himself sharply that close friendship was at least almost as good as love.

 

Oh, Kami-sama, please give me the strength to keep on handling this…

 

* * *

 

I wanna know.

 

- - - - - - - - - -

 

AN: I know, I know, the ending to this chapter was absolutely crappy, but I honestly had no idea what to do! My mind just froze!

 

All right, I'm not sure exactly when I'll be able to update again. I'll work as hard as I can on the next chapter, but like I said, I have finals, and then Christmas, and then after that I'll be in North Carolina for almost ten days with NO computer access, but regardless of any of that, I will try very hard to get out a new chapter before Christmas. I hate updating so slowly, so you can honestly believe me when I tell you I will work until my brains ooze out my ears!

 

Okay, I think I've babbled on long enough. Please review!

 

- - - - - - - - - -

 

Reviewers' comments:

 

Catie-brie: Aww, thanks so much! I'm surprised I can keep them in character, in all honesty. I have the hardest time getting my characters to behave, and in all my stories before this one everyone's been majorly OOC. But I'm so glad to know that's not the case here!

 

Deannamay: I know, I hate that too. Trust isn't something that just happens, and neither is friendship. I had the hardest time making Hiei be so cold toward Kurama—all he wanted to do was get his kiss—but I finally promised him ice cream if he shut up and let me write. I don't expect it to work for long, but for now, he's behaving pretty well. Thanks for the review!

 

Nikkler: Thanks so much! *huggles you back* Were you all right with the flashbacks, and showing Hiei's feelings that way? I hope so…I really don't want to disappoint…

 

Shadowbright: Yay! I'm not boring and unoriginal! *extremely relieved on that point* Actually, I may be, because all I'm doing right now is rewriting some parts of the series and changing things I didn't like…but hey, I'm here to please the readers, so I'm glad I did my job!

 

KyoHana: Thanks so much! Yours was definitely my most gratifying review. I love the fact that I give at least one person something to look forward to, even if I do take forever to update. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, too!

 

sil-kurama: Thanks for your review! Well, I think I answered all of your questions! Um…didn't I? Well, even if I didn't, just let me know and I'll answer `em in the next chapter! Also, if you found anything unclear, drop me a line and I'll try to clear things up for ya.

 

Chocolate Cheese Queen: Thanks for the review! And in compliance with your not-so-subtle hint, here's a nice long chapter for ya!