Humidity

This chapter probably could have been longer, but I’m sensing that this won’t be an especially long story—right now six chapters is looking like an adequate estimate—so I’m saving some of the could-have-been-in-this-chapter content for the next one.

For the opening scene of this chapter I got to thinking about that one vignette in Fantasia with the devil character on the mountain, though how accurate my recollection is I’m unsure—I haven’t seen that movie in many, many years.


To address the reviewers:

To Amiwryn, if you mean the setting as in the weather, or as in the wedding season, both are very important to the story—wedding being part of the plot, weather being part of the … “mood,” perhaps, that it’ll be told in (was never very good at the technical description of this in English class).


Humidity
Chapter II
Relations
June 17, 2008

It was white, but not the all-encompassing, excessive white that incurred the overwhelming, helpless feeling of trying to find a silver fox in a snowstorm. This was a white accented with washed-out pastels: yellow, lavender, rose, blue, turquoise. They glowed off the icicles and rime adorning the trees, the mass shards of hydro-diamond covering the ground; they colored the early morning sky, making the setting calm.

Her breath frosted as she broke the delicate sheet of ice that had formed over the water container’s surface.

Smoke appeared, billowing out across the sky until there was no sky left. The frozen ornaments of the forest began to melt rapidly and run to the ground, blackened by soot. They mixed and became a thick, inky concoction that bled through and stained her shoes and kimono. She stumbled and slipped, coughing, choking on the smoke.

Her struggle became inaudible as the temple exploded with a roar, unable to withstand the pressure. A massive flame rose from the structure’s center, black and red, into the dark canopy, burning, smothering.

Destroying.

***

Gasps, rapid and uneven. Sweat everywhere, a cold glue for the sheet tangled round him. Drenched bangs hung in his eyes and made his vision black. Pushing them back with a trembling hand, he inventoried his surroundings. Early morning: dark room; dusky blue sky outside. Beside him the bed was made, a sharp contrast to the wreck that his side was. Downstairs he could hear Kurama moving around. Habit more than necessity, as the Fox didn’t work today.

His “peers” there treated him differently now, Hiei had learned. Now, meaning since his return after hospitalization and whatever one might dub the time-lapse after. “Readjustment,” perhaps. Hiei shied from the usage of “recovery” because the base issue was perhaps irreparable, only—maybe—reconcilable; but at least Kurama wasn’t suffering chronic melancholia and spontaneous bouts of weeping. Designation regardless, the Jaganshi had observed during his lunch time visits the behavior his friend’s presence elicited from the other employees. If they didn’t outright gawk at the redhead (humans apparently lacked polish), they put too much perceivable effort into not looking. Were he the other, paranoia would most likely have driven him to incinerate—no, he was hypothetically Kurama—to set plants of immense scale outfitted with sharp thorns and potent venom, on the majority of the employment already. Instead, Kurama behaved obliviously, only betraying his awareness via an offhand comment to Hiei, moving on to matters that he considered of greater import.

For instance, to Hiei’s chagrin, Yukina.

***

“Kuwabara and Yukina want my help with the wedding,” broached the Fox casually.

Hiei took a moment to scan the room in a faux bored fashion. Damn air conditioning: no heat to use as an excuse to escape. “You could probably make a killing opening some specialty flower shop,” he muttered, putting a particular stress on the last two words.

“Flowers are considered an integral part of this sort of occasion,” Kurama agreed, “among scores of other things.” His voice sounded tired suddenly, but promptly picked back up. “Fortunately I don’t predict as much care necessary to this as to one of a more conventional nature. One essential element to a wedding is uniting the two families, and since Kuwabara’s kin consists of Shizuru; and Yukina’s brother…” Hiei bristled involuntarily. “… Has for whatever reason condemned her to be a lonely bride,” Kurama resumed—earning a scathing look from his companion—, “‘family’ here would better be defined by our basic group, which is already well-acquainted.” Leaning back, he concluded, “It’ll definitely be a montage, considering the unusual circumstances overall, but less stressful than Mother’s wedding.”

Speak for yourself, Hiei wanted to say, but didn’t feel entitled to. He hadn’t been present on that occasion. “Your words, or Yukina’s?” he murmured.

Kurama looked pensive, and he couldn’t determine whether this was good or not. “She’s not starved for affection, otherwise I doubt this wedding would be taking place. However, this is a milestone in her life—probably the most altering thus far—passing with her mission still unfulfilled.

His word choice made Hiei pause, reminding the half-Koorime of a time not long past when a few specific missions had been his main drive in life. But those of the full Koorime’s couldn’t be so deciding, right?

Sometimes he wondered if Kurama was a secret telepath, though more likely the centuries of problem-solving had made his proficient at reading into a person’s features. For suddenly the Kitsune said melodically: “‘Opposites are of course likes in reality; when things reach the limit of contrariety, and stand at the furthest bounds of divergency, they come to resemble one another. This is decreed by God’s omnipotent power, in a manner that baffles entirely the human imagination. Thus, when ice is pressed a long time in the hand, it finally produces the same effect as fire.’” When the only reaction Hiei could accomplish was a blank stare, Kurama cited: “Ibn Hazm (1) illustrated a valid point; and contrary to what you choose to believe, I don’t think that Yukina and you are the opposing extremes that you would frame her and you to be.”

Figured that Kurama would wait until the end of his lunch hour to assert that, when any rebuttal on Hiei’s part would be cut short by his returning to work. So Hiei offered none, and settled on giving his lover a look that conveyed his thoughts on this sneaky tactic.

“Of course,” Kurama added, collecting his things, “I pray that Ibn Hazm isn’t fully applicable to your case. I’m unsure how I would handle that.”

“Excuse me?” Hiei didn’t follow.

Until with an evil little smirk the other demon elaborated: “His is a treatise on romantic love.”

***

Kurama’s sense of humor, reflected Hiei unappreciatively, was still very much warped.

No chance of Kurama having mistaken himself work-bound this morning. Today’s attire was a turquoise button-up shirt and khaki pants, hardly corporate. His hair, wavy anyhow, had as late grown frizzy with the weather, and was presently bound back in a loose ponytail. Standing at the stove, his back turned out, he nonetheless casually asked, “Nightmare?” as Hiei came into the kitchen.

Denying it would have been futile; they shared a bed. “Did I scream or something?”

“Whatever it was, it belonged to the silent genre of horror.” Still focused o the stove, the redhead retrieved two more eggs from the carton on the counter and cracked them open, depositing their contents in the pan. “Although, you were thrashing a lot.”

Translation: “You kicked me.” “Sorry,” he replied, resting his face in one hand.

Scrambled eggs in front of him, orange juice to his left, Kurama seated across from him. He took a couple of bites, then paused when he noticed the amused look his lover threw his way. “You hair,” supplied the Fox when he raised an eyebrow.

Just getting out of bed, he hadn’t paid any grooming to it yet. “And yours?” he retorted.

Kurama began to eat instead of responding. Pausing, he inquired: “What was it about?” Hiei mimicked his response-alternative. “You’re not wearing your cloak.”

Usually he did, even in this weather. Just getting out of bed, however, he’d thrown on a pair of pants and nothing else. He had nothing physical to conceal from Kurama, who’d already seen everything there was to see. But who had apparently not run out of things to comment on yet. To the other demon’s knowledge he’d contracted a sickness over the winter, accounting for his slightly wasted physique. However, though his friend seemed placated with this explanation, it wasn’t winter anymore, and naturally the Kitsune had grown suspicious over why he hadn’t recovered when he already should have. Expecting some comment conveying such, he said nothing, and waited for Kurama to continue.

“I’m glad,” the latter surprised him. “You were inviting heatstroke, and I’m not eager to see the interior of a hospital anytime soon, again.”

Guilt. Hiei’s eyes didn’t crave anymore of that suppressive white either.

***

While Kurama was almost certainly the wealthiest in powers of intelligence in what the Fox had recently defined to be their “family,” he was not the only one with powers of observation. Everyone had at some time or other remarked on his self-alleged illness. Yukina had been the first, after Kurama, to inquire on it, as made sense of course—she was after all a healer. This helped to canonize his alibi, and no one’s commentary made much deviation from this supposition, even without much detail aside from his proclamation, “I have been ill.”

Except, possibly, for once when the detective and the clown joked about him being “love-sick.” It surprised and annoyed him simultaneously; the two idiots had no idea how right they were.

Everyone may have made comment, but Kurama, naturally, was the most tenacious in his. “You can try to cover it up,” mused the Fox recently, “—and wearing that clock right now isn’t practicable, by the way—, but she’s noticed anyhow.”

His eyebrow had twitched in consternation. “Just because she’s learned that you won’t lapse if she takes her eyes off you doesn’t mean she should transfer her nurturing neurosis to me.”

Giving him a pointed look, Kurama had replied mildly, “I wasn’t referring to my mother.”

Realization was immediate. His companion had gone outside soon after, but he lingered, staring pensively at the mirror mounted on Kurama’s door, wondering how someone who had at their disposal three eyes, one a Jagan no less, lacked such perception.

***

“Are you … of questionable sense?”

Kurama gave Yusuke a quizzical look. “‘Of questionable sense’?”

Shrugging, the brunette said, “Apparently I’m not PC enough or sensitive enough or—Okay, fuck it, I don’t care: if I hear you’re hangin’ around in the desert again, everything else aside, you are fucking nuts.”

Dismissing Yusuke’s concern with a smile, Kurama replied, “I’m not going to the desert this time. I’ll actually be closer to Mukuro’s territory than to yours.”

Hiei listened curiously. Already knowing, this time, that Kurama was going to the Ganderran territory, he had imagined the capital. This was the first he’d heard otherwise.

“You’re being dragged all over the place,” Yusuke observed. Jokingly: “What are you guys conspiring?”

Matter-of-factly the Fox answered, “In just a few years Yomi has ruled one third of the Makai, disbanded kingship over it, and then reclaimed it. Gestures of stability are wise protocol.”

From his place lying on the couch Hiei wondered how calling a humanized demon with self-professed identity issues to different extremes of one’s territory at spastic intervals made a convincing gesture of stability. Out of the corner of his eye, sitting at the table, he could see Yusuke wearing a weird expression. “Wasn’t he supposed to be the reasonable king? Maybe he shouldn’t have been so spontaneous.”

Subtle prejudices toward the king in question aside, Hiei sat up and gave Yusuke a skeptical look.

Kuwabara was more blunt. “Okay Urameshi, maybe I haven’t met this guy, but you’re one to—”

“Don’t you have floral arrangements to consider or something?”

“Yes I do!” The psychic turned from whatever task he’d been doing at the sink. “Eventually. Right now Yukina’s more concerned with finding one of her relations in Demon World that she wants to invite to the wedding.”

No one said anything. Then: “Uh, if it’s her brother … I don’t think she should hold her breath.”

Yusuke’s comment was negated with a shake of the head. “I think she’s kind of given up on her brother. Like, if it happens, it happens, but…” Kuwabara shrugged. “You know, I think that if he knew about her and was interested, he wouldn’t still be lost. So maybe he doesn’t know, or just doesn’t care.”

From the other room Hiei felt Kurama’s eyes on him. His own he kept trained on the floor.

“So,” Yusuke ventured, “if it’s not her brother…”

“Friend of her mother,” Kuwabara answered. “Raised her after her mom died.”

“Rui,” the psychic named in his usual tone. “Yukina thinks she’d come. Only thing is that ice maidens apparently live above the rest of Demon World and finding them can be kinda hard.”

“Wait. She left home, and now she’s not sure how to get back?”

“This group of demons has a history of zealous isolationism, Yusuke,” Kurama provided. “Obscurity is their way of life. It would require someone highly qualified to locate their territory; and consider that Yukina hasn’t been there in several years.”

While Yusuke actually looked considerate Kuwabara shrugged again and said to Kurama, “Well, don’t let this king guy pull a Urameshi on his people while you’re there; our buddy’s never been popular with the demon folk after all.”

“Yeah, I’m sure they’d love you. Some of them are still adjusting to the whole, humans-aren’t-food concept.”

Additional banter followed; Hiei didn’t distinguish the particulars. They left soon after anyhow, after some talk about a water fight ending with a pun thrown his way; he didn’t dignify it with a response; he couldn’t.

“I still think you’d excel at that game,” remarked Kurama.

Actually, he’d said that of snowball fights, and normally Hiei would have jumped to correct him. Right now, however, he didn’t feel right. He felt too tense. Breathing was difficult.

Quickly Kurama was beside him, concern on his face and in his voice as he made inquiries. Of course—Kurama was loathe to share his problems with anyone unless, maybe, it was life-threatening—But gods forbid anyone else suffer in solitude. Though Hiei was unable to make any reply the Fox continued speaking in a soothing voice, assuring him that his symptoms—symptoms?—would pass soon, that he would be all right…

Having never experienced a panic attack before, Hiei could only cling to these words of comfort and trust Kurama that they were true.

***

“Rui can identify you,” Kurama said gingerly.

Hiei nodded, too tired to affirm vocally. His friend had been right, his episode hadn’t been long, he’d been functioning normally for the past half-hour. But he didn’t feel like talking.

A hand wandered over his back. After his attack Kurama had given him a massage; that much fussing he had allowed. “I thought as much. Even after all the years, someone would still have to recognize you. Being so close to your mother and your sister would make her a favorable candidate.”

Better her than one of the others. But then Hiei could obliterate the whole lot of them if it suited him. “She’s not as cold as the rest,” he finally offered.

“Ice is in every part of the Koorime’s being, I’ve heard,” replied the Fox. “Though Yukina’s temperament would certainly mislead one.”

He tensed a little. “I’m more comparable to those frigid crones than she is.”

Kurama rubbed his shoulders. “Recall that you’re a demon. A hard heart is essential to basic survival in the Makai. Or the Ningenkai—humans are as capable of it as we are. I think that if the occasion called for it, Yukina would be just as capable as you or I.” Hiei bristled, but couldn’t hold out long against Kurama’s hands. “The Koorime in their isolation, however, have fostered this survival skill into a paranoia that makes their sanctuary just as much a prison. Ice is difficult to break through, on either side.” Pausing a moment, he then said, “Are you familiar with the tale of the Snow Queen?”

Should he be? “Was she a Koorime?”

“Not in the technical sense. She’s a foreign writer’s invention (2). In his story she lived in a palace of ice and snow, and kept there a boy whose heart she had frozen. He remained in this arctic temper until the arrival of a girl from his home, whose love freed him from the Snow Queen’s bondage. A girl, who was like a sister to him.”

Before Hiei could make any comment on this Kurama’s hands moved. His eyes widened.

In place of intelligible words was a surprised grunt, which evolved into a soft keen as his companion progressed from just holding to kneading. Aided by the latter he adjusted himself into an upright position, leaning back against Kurama, resting his head at the base of the redhead’s throat. With a light groan he opened his legs a little further, making more room between his thighs for Kurama, who promptly made better use of both hands. Hiei began to fidget—more persistent once a pair of lips and a set of teeth took to sucking on and biting at his ear. Sensual laughter answered his movements. One of the hands at his crotch pulled away only to tease his nipples, all the more vulnerable by now, instead. He cried louder and tossed his head. Kurama’s mouth quickly claimed his, and it was this that drank in the rest of his groans and sighs and yowls once the hands had done all they could.

Drowsy, he only half-registered Kurama turning him and laying him across the bed, and then lying down beside him. “Don’t flatter ‘those frigid crones’ by relating yourself to them,” the Fox murmured. “You do love, and are loved.”

He could smell his own sweat, and beneath that Kurama’s scent, a heady floral, intensified by the heat, seasonal and their own alike. At ease now, it occurred to him that for all that his companion had done for him this afternoon, he’d yet to reciprocate. Reaching over, he felt that this was hardly from lack of necessity.

“Allow me to love you now,” he replied, undoing the buckle above the bulge in Kurama’s pants.

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(1) Ibn Hazm, an eleventh century Islamic philosopher from Cordova. His work includes The Dove’s Necklace, the treatise on love quoted in this chapter, and one of the more down-to-earth pieces of courtly love literature that I’ve seen, which is one of the reasons I like it enough to reference it here.

(2) Hans Christian Andersen, also responsible for works such as “The Little Match Girl,” “The Ugly Ducking,” and “The Little Mermaid.” The Snow Queen reference was a spontaneous idea that found its way into this last revision of the chapter, but I think it possible to make a more solid link between that story and Hiei’s, if one did further probing. Maybe someone could make a parallel fairy-tale fanfic out of it someday.