Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ I Don't Need a Hero! ❯ Nightly Conversing ( Chapter 11 )

 

Kaya sat alone in her room, staring blankly into the mirror at her own reflection. Black, messy hair hid the under chucks of dyed cherry red hair, dark, thin eyebrows sat on her face, not hinting at any emotion their owner may have been feeling, one of them pierced. Big, round, teal colored eyes covered by long, thick black lashes. Her slender, slightly upturned button nose had a ring pieced through the right nostril. Well defined cheek bones made her look older than she really was, while her thick, full lips made her look womanly. The two piercings sat right next to each other, almost touching, on her lower lip, one of them a ring and the other a stud.

 

The clock read 3:28am. Kaya had to wonder why this sudden new observance of her appearance had bothered her enough to keep her awake. She had never been the type to care about appearances, especially her own. Never in her life had she given her looks this much thought, and it was starting to bother her. She felt vain, shallow even, for giving the topic so much thought. It wasn't like her.

 

She had come to terms with her guilt over the whole Hiei thing, dismissing any farther thought on the subject. She knew he wasn't angry with her, and so she let go of her own anger and tried to forget it. She had been on her way to dream land, a new feeling of peace washing over her due to the release of her anger, when a sudden thought popped into her mind and decided to stay, keeping her awake into the later hours of the night.

 

“Do I look like her?”

 

It was then that she realized that she could very well have inherited more than Hikira's powers, but her looks as well. And for some reason, one she herself couldn't even explain, it bothered her. It bothered her a lot, actually.

 

`Maybe it bugs me so much because that means I'm not who I thought I was. Maybe it's because that means I'm just another step closer to being her, and not me.'

 

She had always prided herself on her individuality, her ability to be unique, different. That was something she always strived for, to stand out from everyone else. To be her own person. To not get caught up in silly superficial trends or fads. She always hated the superficial “glitz and glam” of American pop culture. Most of the time she was even ashamed to be of the same species as those people. But, as it turns out, she never really was anyway.

 

And she was almost glad. She always, always hated people. It never surprised her how stupid people were, how petty, hypocritical, clueless, brainless or fascist people were. They all seemed to be clones of themselves too, which is something she always hated.

 

`I guess that means that I hate humanity… Oh god… I'm Hiei!' She thought, eyes wide with horror.

 

`Hn. It's not an awful thing to hate creatures that are so far below you, onna.' Hiei's voice echoed into her head.

 

`But I've lived my entire life as a human, Hiei. And I do not feel superior to them in any way, shape or form. I just never understood them, even when I was one, and I probably never will.' She replied, sighing.

 

“Sounds like you hate them. “ Came Hiei's voice from behind her. Confused to hear Hiei's voice spoken aloud, Kaya turned around to see him sitting in her windowsill. He had his eyes closed and his arms crossed over his chest, one of his short legs hanging off.

 

“I don't know if I hate them or not. Hate, believe it or not Hiei, is a very strong word to use. Especially when you're talking about an entire race of people.” She said, turning in her chair to face him.

 

“You said it yourself, they're all clones of each other. And in that respect, if you hate one, you hate them all.”

 

“I suppose you're right. But there are exceptions. There will always be exceptions.” She said, running a hand through her hair.

 

“Name one.”

 

“Oh, I knew you were going to play that card…” Kaya said, pausing to think. “Kuwabara!” She exclaimed, scoffing a second later. Hiei just looked at her with an eyebrow raised. “Okay, okay, bad example. Lemme think for a second..”

 

“George Carlin!” She said, pointing her finger into the air, proud that she had thought of one.

 

“Who?” He asked, puzzled and uninterested.

 

“He was an American comic who took all these touchy, depressing subjects like government, religion, war, our freedoms, or lack thereof, and made them funny. He made them into things people could laugh at, thus making them forget about how fucked they truly were. So, even if it was only for a few minutes, people had no worries.” She explained with admiration in her eyes.

 

“Making people forget their problems is hardly fixing them.” Hiei stated.

 

“True. But you know what they say… Ignorance is bliss.” She laughed, standing up. She walked over to her bed, which was closer to the window Hiei was in. Sitting down, she looked to him for his reply.

 

“Humans are scum. And you know it. For some reason, you still seem to think of yourself as one of them, so you defend them trying to defend yourself.” Hiei said, looking at her for her reaction. Her eyebrows raised slightly, and she smiled.

 

“Is that what you think?” She paused to chuckle a little and run her hand through her hair again. God, he wished she'd quit doing that. He liked to watch her hair move, the color changing as it swayed around her neck and back.

 

“Well, I guess you're right. But can you honestly blame me? My entire life, all 17 and a half years of it, I've been a human. Now, that may not seem very long to you but it's been my whole life, ya know? I can't just stop thinking that way.”

 

“Hn. You should. The fact of the matter is that you are not, were not, and will never be a human. You should stop thinking like one and focus on unlocking your true power.” He stated, keeping eye contact with her. He was actually surprised to find himself keeping eye contact with her for so long, never before had he even seen the need to.

 

“Is that what you'd do, Hiei?” She asked, a knowing look on her face. He nodded and she went on.

 

“I guess I'm not like you then. I don't find it that easy to just abandon everything I've ever known, everything I've ever thought of as fact, and move on to a completely new way of thinking.”

 

“And you pride yourself on being open minded?” He smirked. Letting out a laugh, Kaya shook her head. “We're all fucking hypocrites.” She said, still laughing. He chuckled.

 

“Human mentality.”

 

“How did that saying go? If it looks like shit and smells like shit, it must be shit.” She chuckled. “And yes, Hiei, humans are shit.”

 

“For once, Kaya, I agree with you.” He said. Something happened to his face when he said that, it was almost a smile, like a half smirk/dark grin, but it still caused a smile of her own to form on her face.

 

Some time passed before either one of them spoke again. It wasn't an uneasy silence, or an awkward one, nor was it a peaceful silence. It was just a silence, the passing of time without any spoken words.

 

Kaya was shocked to find herself having an actual conversation with the grumpy little fire demon. She was even more surprised to find she was actually enjoying his company. She knew that he wasn't the easiest person to talk too, and she was sure that few people had enjoyed conversing with her in the past. One question kept popping into her head though, a little voice screaming at her to ask him. Sighing, she gave in.

 

“So… I've been meaning to ask you this for some time now…” She trailed off, playing with the bottom of her tank-top. “How much… Did you see everything… that night?” She asked, almost sheepishly.

 

“Yes. I saw everything.” Hiei said, breaking eye contact with her for the first time that night.

 

“Oh... So you know…everything about me then?” She asked, one eyebrow slightly raised. She looked down so quickly he wasn't even sure he saw it.

 

“Hn. Yes.”

 

“I saw everything too. I um… I felt everything you felt. All the pain and…” She paused, unsure if she should say it or not. She was having such a nice time talking to him, she didn't want to scare him off. “All the loneliness you felt.”

 

“So did I.” He said, turning his head away from her to look out the window. He was closing up. She was glad when he had managed to hold a conversation with her without putting up an overly large shield. It wasn't like he had ever let his guard down, but he had lowered it by about an inch.

 

Not knowing what else to say to him, Kaya just stayed silent for a while, thinking things over. She was starting to regret even bringing that night up to him. She was enjoying talking to him like a person so much and she had to go and ruin it.

 

“Why did you cry?” He asked suddenly, surprising her. He still wasn't looking at her, still had his head towards the window, but he had spoken.

 

“I told you why. Because you wouldn't.” She said. That didn't seem to be a good enough answer for him though, he still seemed to be expecting something.

 

“When I felt all the emotions you did, saw all the shit you went through… I just couldn't help it. I have no idea how you held all of that in Hiei, but I know for a fact that you do have emotions. You try to act like you don't, but I know you feel things and I know all the pain you've felt.” She said, looking down at her hands the entire time she spoke.

 

Hiei didn't say anything for awhile after that, just sat there looking out the window. He seemed to be deep in thought, and Kaya was relieved that he didn't seem to be totally avoiding the topic.

 

“You knew when you were a little girl. You knew you weren't like everyone else. You knew you weren't human. Why do you continue to deny it?” He asked, still not looking at her.

 

“I thought it sounded crazy. I always knew I wasn't normal, yes, but I also knew people get locked in mental institutions for claiming to be anything but human. With my mother's mental history and everything, I always just assumed I was a little crazy.” She stated, rubbing her upper arm as though she had the chills.

 

“You're doing it again. You're denying it. If you didn't know when you were little, you had to have known when your powers exploded and you knocked out all the windows to that school.” He said, turning to look at her this time. She wasn't surprised to see his face was blank and devoid of any emotion or feeling what-so-ever.

 

“I was scared that time. I didn't know what the hell was going on. I must have just ignored it, pushed it back. I pretended it didn't happen.”

 

“That's called denial.” He said, narrowing his eyes.

 

“I know.” She said flatly, looking up at him innocently through dark lashes.

 

“Do you accept it now?” He asked.

 

“What?”

 

“Do you accept what you are now?” He repeated, his voice low and deep.

 

“Hiei, I-“ She trailed off. She didn't want to answer him because that would cement it for her. That'd be it. She'd be one of the unknowns. She'd be something completely different and new and scary. Truth be told, she had accepted it as fact, although not all of it. She had already accepted the fact that she wasn't human, she just couldn't accept the fact that she wasn't who she thought she was. The fact that she wasn't her own person, the fact that she was Hikira and not Kaya.

 

“Do you?” He asked again, his voice more forceful this time.

 

“I don't know.”

 

“Not good enough.”

 

“Well what do you want from me?” She asked, her voice raising a little bit.

 

“Yes or no.”

 

“No and yes.”

 

“I asked you a question, woman, I expect an answer. “ He was starting to get angry now. Standing up, he stood in front of her so she couldn't get up and run away. So she'd be forced to look at him.

 

“Why do you care so much?!” She shouted, angry as well.

 

“Because if you keep thinking you are human; if you are still in that limited mentality then my training with you will have no results. It's all mental.” He said, pointing at his head. His voice was calm and collected.

 

“I suppose I don't accept it. But I don't know how to not think like a human, Hiei. It is very hard to think you're something your whole life and then just stop and become something else.” She said, looking up at him from his standing position in front of her.

 

“Just accept it. Forget all the human misery you've dealt with, forget all the petty morons. Forget every piece of human scum you've ever met and just think about your powers.” He said, his eyes narrowed at her.

 

“I can't! I can't forget about my past, I can't forget about the imbeciles I've spent so much time hating, and I won't forget about my brothers.” She said the last part of her sentence very firmly.

 

When Hiei looked at her expectantly, she growled. “If someone asked you to forget about Yukina, could you?” She asked, knowing he wasn't going to answer that.

 

“Learn to accept it. Until then, your training will never progress.”

 

Silence over took the room once again, this time for more than a few minutes. Hiei had gone back to sitting in the window, looking out into the night sky full of stars and twinkling lights. She was actually a bit glad, though more confused, that Hiei seemed to be content on her windowsill. She was sure he would have left by now. On the other hand, she was sitting there on her bed thinking about everything he had just said to her. He was right, and she knew it. But she was right also, and he just wasn't seeing her side of it.

 

She had already accepted 97 percent of the fact that she wasn't human. She had fully accepted the fact that she wasn't normal and never was, but she couldn't bring herself to accept that no one knew just what she really was, what her powers were, anything. No one had answers. All they really know is that she is a reincarnation of someone with multiple powers, any number of which she could have inherited. Sure, Hikira had made things easy and told her which powers she had, but how could she be sure? She couldn't. And in that respect, she was an unknown. She was nothing, just a life form with no title or classification, no definition, or recognition. A ghost.

 

There were just too many unknowns. While she did understand that she wasn't human, she still couldn't stop herself from thinking like one. It would help her out a great deal if she knew just what she should be thinking like though.

 

Sighing, Kaya looked around the room and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. All of her previous thoughts about her appearance being like Hikira's came back and with them the feelings of blankness and nothingness.

 

“Do you think I'm pretty Hiei?” She asked suddenly. It had been around 20 minutes of silence before she spoke up and asked that seemingly random question. She hadn't even realized she asked it aloud, she didn't mean too, and almost feared his answer. Not so much him saying “No, I don't think you're pretty,” but just him telling her how stupid she was for even asking such a question and leaving.

 

He looked at her, puzzled, confused, and a tiny bit pink in the cheeks. “What…?”

 

“Do you think I'm, you know,… pretty?” She asked again, looking right at him.

 

Hiei sat there for awhile, just looking at her face, his own blank and emotionless. She didn't feel awkward or uneasy under his gaze, in fact she would've felt casual and comfortable were it not for her nagging feelings of deep-rooted self consciousness.

 

For his part, Hiei normally wouldn't have even answered such a revealing question, but since he was roaming around in her thoughts for a few hours, he knew how bothered she was by the fact that she may look like Hikira. Honestly when he got right down to it, he did find the girl attractive. Albeit annoying and infuriating, but he did think she was nice to look at.

 

Of course this admission took countless hours laying awake at night to even come close to his thoughts. And really, it wasn't like the little fire demon was naive about woman or anything. He's had plenty of demon females throw themselves at him in the past. He wasn't naive, he wasn't shy, and he wasn't innocent. So he had no trouble answering the girls question…

 

“Hn. Yes.” He spoke those words so flatly, so monotone, so unattached and emotionless that she actually got the chills from it. Or maybe the chills came from his intense gaze on her face for the past few minutes. She just smiled up at him with admiring eyes and he rolled his, saying something about females being too obsessed with their appearances.

 

From then on every night after that, Hiei would come sneak through her window and the two would converse about anything they saw fit. From serious discussion, to light hearted ones, the two formed a sort of routine out of his nightly visits.

 

Kaya was delighted the few times she was actually able to make him laugh, however slight it may have been. And he was happy being able to have a conversation with someone who wasn't a total moron. All he's had up until now had been Kurama, and talking to the same person for 300 years does get old. Not that Hiei was the companionship, or even the talking to someone type, but, although he did not realize it, and would never admit it if he did, he actually enjoyed having someone who understood him, someone who knew who he was first hand.

 

Between their training and these nightly conversations, the two were spending an increasing amount of time together, though no one really seemed to take notice. They had silently agreed to not fill in the others on how much time they really were spending together, simply because neither one of them liked answering a million stupid questions.

 

Time went on with these visits occurring nightly for around three months. Kaya had gotten considerably better with her telepathic training, having graduated from picking up twigs to moving boulders great distances. Hiei had been getting tougher and tougher on her during these training sessions, but they both found that she needed it, that it helped to motivate her. She no longer had any hard feelings towards him for his harsh behavior, she understood why he did it and knew it was for her own good. And, occasionally, he'd been known to let up on her just a little bit when she was having difficulties.

 

Hideyoshi had yet to show his face around in Kaya's thoughts, seeming to be on a temporary hiatus. Nor had Sunny's soul searing voice popped up in some time. She was relieved, for the most part, but there was still that anxiety there. The feelings of dread and prolonged terror serving to torture her mind as she slept. Everyone knew that it was really only a matter of time, but with how much she's improved during the last few months, they all knew she could put up a good fight against him should he try the same stunt he pulled last time. No new information had come up on the dream demon haunting Kaya, which brought her that much more stress. There was no way to predict what his next move would be.

 

Kaya would find herself laying awake at night, after Hiei would leave, feeling better about everything in her life. Not feeling so scared, or angry, guilty, or depressed. She just felt better with him around. She had told him so the other night, smiling at the memory of him smirking and calling her a baby in more or less words. She was glad she was getting to know him better than just knowing him through his memories.

 

Hiei was a little confused about why he liked talking to the girl himself, …maybe it was because of the upcoming mating season. The leaves were just starting to change with the beginning of fall, marking the first official days of the ice demon mating season. He had been effected by the season's months in advance during previous years, this year being no different. Due to his mother and father being two different types of demons, he was effected by the seasons for longer, seemingly random periods of time. Since each type of demon has a different mating session, he was handed down both his father's fire demon season, and his mother's ice demon season.

 

As badly as he wanted that to be true, he found he genuinely enjoyed the girls company, enjoyed talking to her. If it hadn't been for that night when her powers overtook his mind and showed him everything about her, he probably wouldn't have been so interested. He would have just assumed she was another petty moron among a group of idiots.

 

Sitting up in his tree, Hiei cast down a glare at Yusuke as he snatched away the book Kaya was sitting outside reading. He watched as the spirit detective took off running with it, Kaya chasing after him spewing out a steady stream of curses.

 

“HA-HA! Catch me if you can!” The grease ball teen shouted over his shoulder.

 

“Yusuke, I'm gonna murder you!” She screamed, venom seeping out from her words.

 

Shaking his head, Hiei turned his attention back to the sky, thinking of how he would deal with his season this year.