Old Habits

A/N: Thanks for the reviews! Sorry this is so slow-going. The chapters are intentionally short, and this is steadily getting weirder. Again, sorry. Just know that the summary is very relevant and that the continuous use of windows is mildly important in its own vague way.

...I don't have a beta and haven't forced myself to find one yet. I'm sorry for that, too.


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Chapter Two

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“Yes, Mother.”

Kurama stood in the observation room, facing a wall of windows as he spoke on a sleek cell phone with a woman worlds away.

“And you've been eating well?” Her voice sounded a bit garbled and distant, but then, Kurama supposed that he was lucky the phone was even working between worlds. Koenma had made a special allowance for him, and he had very carefully not asked about interworldly cell-phone plans.

Yes,” he responded, with a laugh that wasn't entirely fake. He was far more used to Makaian food than he was anything his mother had fed him. And Yomi knew his tastes, so he suspected he was eating better in Gandara than he had been while in the human world.

His mind wandered as the conversation continued, his eyes drifting over the dark city, wondering lazily at how easily he could lie to this woman while standing over a demon metropolis. After a few moments, he sensed Yomi's presence behind him and pursed his lips.

“Mother, I need to go. I really should be studying.”

A hand found its way to his waist and he flipped the cell phone closed after saying his goodbyes. “I was busy.”

“You looked bored.”

Kurama imagined that Yomi meant for it to be funny – always saying things like 'you looked' or 'that appeared.' Or he was taunting Kurama in his own, subtle way. It was annoying, whichever it was. Kurama pressed his forehead to the glass, his stomach doing a flip as all of Gandara seemed to stretch out beneath him, so far below him that he might as well have been flying. “I was bored. But I didn't need your help.”

Yomi's hand slipped around to caress Kurama's hip bone, as if in punishment, and the redhead closed his eyes. Someday, Yomi would have to learn that punishment was supposed to be unpleasant.

When no verbal reply seemed forthcoming, Kurama cleared his throat. “Did you need something?”

A soft laugh was his only answer, and he could feel his eyebrow twitch against the cool glass. Perhaps it had been a bad choice of words, but Yomi was being rather base in pointing it out, even if he hadn't actually said anything. Kurama twisted out of his hold, and the tilt of Yomi's lips spoke volumes. His sense of humor obviously hadn't changed much in the past thousand years, even if everything else about him had. It should have been a comfort, but it only reminded Kurama of the differences.

And that train of thought only served to remind him of Yusuke's earlier question.

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After the warm welcome he had received upon his last visit, Yusuke had not returned to Gandara. Kurama thought that his friend might have been insulted – he wouldn't have blamed him, as that had actually been his intention – but a few days after Yusuke's departure, Kurama received a letter from the Toranin heir. Convenient.

He'd left it on the desk in his suite, and would have forgotten about it completely – selective memory was a powerful thing - if not for his little reminder in the observation tower. Later, after shooing Yomi from his room, he sat down at his desk and carefully opened the letter. It was, as he had expected, filled with spelling errors and horrible sentence structure. But, like Yusuke himself, its seeming chaos hid something much more substantial.

--and so then Keiko hit me over the head with her umbrella and told me that if I ever touched her there again, she'd shove it down my throat and open it. Which would suck, am I right? I mean, you've been alive a long time, I bet you've seen something like that happen before. But the point is, I finally did the assignment so that Keiko wouldn't have another reason to kill me. Again. And it actually turned out pretty cool, ya know? I mean, it's lame and all, but it helps. You don't even have to send the letter, just write it out. Not that I don't want you to send the letter, because damn if you aren't confusing and I kinda wanna know what's going on in your head sometimes, but--

The useful part ended there. It was, admittedly, a rather juvenile exercise: write out your thoughts in a letter to a friend. Whether or not the letter ever found its way into the mail was entirely voluntary – the point was to get the thoughts out. Kurama had participated in a similar assignment when he had been in school. It seemed silly, but what could it hurt? Getting things down on paper might make them easier to sort through.

Kurama set Yusuke's note aside and procured a fresh piece of parchment from a drawer in his desk. He smoothed one hand over it and studied the blank sheet for a long time. He was writing to Yusuke, so he felt that whatever he wrote should be relevant to his friend while still somehow getting across some of the chaotic things that had been running through his mind of late.

But perhaps he was putting too much thought into this. Wasn't he supposed to simply write whatever was on his mind at any given moment? He put pen to paper and, in smooth, flawless characters, began to write.

I still have the scar on my stomach. My youki keeps more serious wounds from scarring, yet that one remains. I don't know why. Maybe I want it there.

Kurama set his pen down, feeling a twinge in his stomach at the thought of the thin, white mark there. He dropped his chin into his hand, remembering shocked red eyes and his first well-intentioned betrayal. Or was it his second? He idly traced one finger over his bottom lip.

Hiei was more forgiving than Yomi.

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Being with Yomi felt like freedom, like a warm den and a new bedmate every night and the rush of a successful heist. It was the best kind of pain.

Kurama wondered what being with him felt like to Yomi.

His mind was cloudy, half-formed thoughts drifting through his consciousness like the pale hands beneath his shirt or the fluttering of lips against his neck, over his pulse. He felt that pulse speed up, disgustingly human and out of place, and it was as if Minamino Shuuichi had caught them in the act. He returned to his body – no, not his at all – and cupped Yomi's cheeks in his hands, tilting his face up for a kiss. The Gandaran king smiled coldly against his lips.

Maybe being with Kurama felt like revenge.

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