The Art of Loving Oneself

“Peripety.” Kurama muttered to Kuwabara. Kuwabara stared vacantly back at Kurama from his place on the couch the way he always did nowadays. His petals had yet to wilt, he looked pleasantly happy, just like Kurama remembered him. “That is what is happening. Do you like how I have arranged your home?” Kurama glanced at Kuwabara again, smiling. “Yes, I thought so... Hiei does not seem happy here.” Kurama looked over at Hiei. “You’ve become boxy and square and far too shiny, Hiei. Please stop making that incessant buzzing sound. It is quite disturbing.” Kurama waited, then sighed. “Apparently you cannot, even though I have unplugged you.” Kurama leaned back against the couch and closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, Kuwabara was gone and Hiei had stood up from his perch on the floor. “That is better, Hiei. You look significantly more like yourself and less like a paracosm this way.”

 

Hiei strode over to the couch and pushed Kurama against it, hands on his shoulders and nipped at the base of the kitsune’s neck. Kurama let out a gasp. “Hiei.... w-we are in Kuwabara-kun’s living room.” Hiei said nothing, just kept kissing Kurama and nipping at him. “Please say something, Hiei...”

 

Hiei remained silent and ran his claws over Kurama’s arms. Kurama sighed. “You are being gentle again...” Even though Kurama was bleeding, he could barely feel it. “Hiei. Please say something. I miss your voice.”

 

“Wake up, damn you!” Was followed by an actual pain in Kurama’s cheek. Kurama snapped awake. He hadn’t realized he’d drifted off again. Hiei looked more solid now, more real and animated. Kurama glanced at the television. It was gone. “Good. Now come with me.”

 

“I’d rather not.” Kurama reached for Hiei’s shirt to try to tug it off of him. Hiei slapped his hands away. “What are you doing? Leave my shirt be. Let’s go.”

 

Kurama nearly jumped when the daisy beside him -Kuwabara- started stammering and fell off the couch, bright red in the face. “I am sorry, Kuwabara-kun, I forgot you were here.”

 

“Th-tha-that’s okay!” Kuwabara stuttered back, looking far more real now, less like a daisy. “We came t’rescue you.”

 

“Oh?” Kurama folded his arms over his chest and closed his eyes but Hiei slapped him again. “You are being very rude in this dream, Hiei.”

 

“You are not dreaming this!” Hiei growled. “We’ve come to rescue you, as the oaf said. Have you any idea how difficult it has been to break through your defenses? You have not been listening. Falling ‘asleep’ at random times. I have stood beside you, shouting for hours.”



“It’s true!” Kuwabara said, nodding. “Hiei’s been a wreck ever since y’got captured! Nearly bit off Urameshi’s head when he couldn’t tell ‘im what was goin’ on.” Kuwabara stood and offered Kurama a hand to help him up. “This ain’t a dream, Kurama.” Kuwabara turned a bit red in the face at this. “I-I know y’been havin’ bad dreams. It’s ‘cause of th’tree...”

 

“Tree?” Kurama tilted his head to one side, staring at Kuwabara. “What a peculiar dream....”

 

“You. Are not. Asleep.” Hiei’s teeth were gritted. He sounded beyond enraged now. Almost calm. It scared Kurama somewhat. “Come with us. We must get you out of here.” Hiei glanced around. “What is this place supposed to be?”

 

“I think it’s my house,” Kuwabara replied. “Looks like it’s made’a cardboard, though.... TV and th’daisy are th’only things that look real...”

 

Hiei let out an aggravated noise through his nose. “Let’s go, Kurama. Enough of this foolishness. I would have assumed you were smart enough to fight off your own weapon.”

 

“I do not want to leave. It is nice here.” Kurama wanted to weep. He was so crazy that his hallucinations felt real. Kuwabara was speaking to him, sounding exactly as he remembered. Hiei too, although, he’d heard Hiei’s voice often enough on the wind.

 

“C-come with us, Kurama.” Kuwabara rubbed his hands together, looking morose suddenly. “I-I know y’wanna end this. We can help ya end it.”

 

“Really?” That piqued Kurama’s interest, he looked up at Kuwabara once more and allowed the redhead to help him to his feet, clinging to Kuwabara harder than he would normally because Kuwabara felt warm and real.

 

They can help me die? I will follow them. Even if this is a cruel dream once more. My friends have finally come for me. I do not mind this hallucination. Kuwabara-kun and Hiei look more real than the streets we’re walking through. They keep speaking to me but I have no desire to answer any longer. I am content to follow wherever they lead me.

 

“He’s been quiet fer awhile, Hiei.” Kuwabara looked back at Kurama, worried. “How long we been walkin’?”

 

Hiei blew out a low breath and stared straight ahead. “I do not know. Do not ask stupid questions.”

 

“Never thought th’inside’a Kurama’s head would look so... lonely.” Kuwabara looked at Kurama, wishing the kitsune would let go. It was really weird for Kurama to cling like that. “Thought th’Sinning Tree made you hallucinate violence.”

 

Hiei scowled at Kuwabara. “Once again, you prove how simple-minded you are. Clearly, it makes you hallucinate whatever is the strongest feeling you have at the time.”

 

Kuwabara looked around again and was suddenly very sad. “That means Kurama’s lonely.”

 

“It means he is a fool. At least he is complacent.” Hiei looked around at the street they were on, there was a childish drawing of Yuusuke’s apartment on laying in gray grass where Yuusuke’s home should be. “He has the mind of a child now. When I first arrived, this place looked more solid and realistic. Your home is the only place that looked real at all.”

 

“Yeah.” Kuwabara winced.  The Yukimura diner was a drawing just like Yuusuke’s house. “Surprised we look real, considerin’... I mean, y’look kinda... square.”

 

Hiei looked at Kuwabara for a moment then scoffed. “Kurama imagines you far more attractive than you are. Perhaps because he was speaking to a flower, behaving as though it were you.” Hiei reached for his sword and was irritated to find a TV antenna instead. He sighed. “He thought I was the television.”

 

Kuwabara wanted to laugh but didn’t. It was creepy, Hiei looked mostly like himself except for being boxy and having a plug for a “tail.” “Guess he don’t see you as bein’ a real looker...”

 

Hiei scowled but said nothing, he looked at Kurama. “Why is he smiling like that?”

 

Kuwabara looked. Kurama’s expression was pretty nerve-wracking. “Dunno. We gotta get ‘im outta here. I remember th’way to Demon’s Door cave. I think if we get ‘im there an’ fight th’tree, we can get him out of it.”

 

“Something he should have done himself.” Hiei looked at his hands. “I will tear the tree off of him. You stay put and make sure he does not do anything foolish.”

 

The trek to the cave took longer than Kuwabara wanted. The areas of human world Kurama hadn’t visited yet in his mind looked like white paper with drawings where things should be, they passed a field that looked completely fake safe for one highly realistic daisy growing out of a large sheet of white paper, but the cave looked real enough. Kuwabara stared at it. He didn’t like the looks of that cave and neither did Kurama apparently. “No!” Kurama shouted, suddenly “Don’t make me go inside!”

 

“I-it’s okay, Kurama. We’re here! M-me an’ Hiei will protect ya.” Kuwabara rubbed Kurama’s back, feeling scared witless. Kurama was supposed to be strong, not fearful. It made him angry. Angrier than he’d been in a while. How dare those brats do this to Kurama? “Urameshi’s already taken care’a th’jerks that trapped ya. H-he’s just.... gotta...”

 

“Go in the cave, Kurama.” Hiei grabbed Kurama’s wrist and pulled on him, half-dragging the kitsune into the cave.

 

“H-hey! Y’oughta be more gentle with him!” Even in this situation, Kuwabara couldn’t help but get annoyed at Hiei for being rough with Kurama. Especially since it was obvious Kurama really liked Hiei!

 

“Kurama does not want me to be gentle.” Hiei gave Kuwabara a murderous look but kept walking and Kuwabara had no choice but to follow. Silently.

 

Details of the cave stood out more the more they walked. It wasn’t hard to find the correct path, it was lit by the lamp plants Kurama had thrown in the cave the first time they’d visited this particular place, although that cave had been real and not a manifestation of Kurama’s memory of it. Which was good, because they were going to the same part of the cave. Kurama had stopped protesting, he just shuffled along beside Hiei, occasionally trying to tug away and whimpering when Hiei only tightened his hold.  “Hiei... Let me-”

 

“No,” Hiei snapped. “I have had enough of your simpering and emotional nonsense. I endured you weeping over the state of Kurama’s home even though this is only his imagination.”

 

“It looked like he ripped it t’pieces with his bare hands, Hiei!” Kuwabara exclaimed. “Quit bein’ such an ass! Besides-”

 

Hiei turned in the middle of the cave and pulled out the tv antenna in the hilt at his side, pointing it at Kuwabara. “Be silent or I will make what I am about to do to Elder Toguro look like a gentle shove when I am done with you.”

 

Kuwabara fell silent only because Hiei looked completely calm when he said that.

 

“Where is the sinning tree, Kurama?” Hiei suddenly snapped. Kurama whimpered and backed away. “Terrific. He is too frightened to speak.”

 

“Maybe if you’d stop yellin’ at him!” Kuwabara gave Hiei a righteously angry look and gently tugged Kurama away. “Don’t pay attention t’him, Kurama. He’s jus’ upset ‘cause y’got hurt.”

 

“I am not injured,” Kurama muttered. It was the first coherent thing he’d said in hours. “Do not worry about my wounds. Yuusuke needs you more than I.”

 

Kuwabara looked Kurama over. He had to disagree. Kurama looked like he’d been starved and beaten which was nothing to what the tree was currently doing to his human body. “We gotta get him outta here, Hiei. Dunno if he can take much more.”

 

“That’s what I’ve been saying you enormous incompetent!” Hiei darted ahead, Kuwabara followed with one arm around Kurama. Kurama seemed to get more frightened as they walked but Kuwabara kept giving him muttered reassurances, telling him he’d be okay.

 

A loud explosion alerted Kuwabara to the fact that Hiei had found the tree just up ahead.