~Once Burned~

Huzzah, an update! With each chapter I take thee closer to lemonville....But not yet! Don't worry, my beloved readers, there is much kissing in this chapter. Oh, and if you think you spy a plot hole in the beginning of this chapter, just keep reading. Trust me, it's not a plot hole, it just looks that way for a few minutes. Read and enjoy!


Kurama could wait as long as he had to.

Or so he had told himself. If there was one word that described Hiei in a nutshell, it was “stubborn.” Not only was the fire apparition *veeeeeery* good at keeping others at arm’s length, he also had an annoying habit of disappearing without warning and without notice of how long he intended to be gone. He had done it again only a day after Kurama’s confession, and after nearly a week he had yet to return!

Kurama sat in class, trying to concentrate on the lesson instead of a certain short, cantankerous demon. It was no use at all; he had never felt so distracted in his life. His large fanbase of girls had finally begun to notice the slight downward slip of his mood, and it would be only a matter of time before one of them tried to “comfort him in his hour of need.” Things were not looking good, and the reborn fox demon was close to tearing his hair out in frustration. Not that he ever would, of course. He was (and he had to admit it to himself) just a little too vain to take such a course of action.

/I have to *do* something before I go out of my mind,/ he thought, /It was easy to think I could give Hiei all the time he needed when I thought he’d be around! How can I ‘convince’ him of anything if he’s not here?/

“Minamino-kun, if you would pay attention please? It isn’t like you to be so inattentive.”

Kurama sighed under his breath. “Yes, Sensei. I apologize.”

Oh well. Hiei would have to wait, as it appeared math was currently of greater import. He did manage to pay attention for the remainder of class, and even finished most of his work before it ended. Inari bless the small miracles.

The class ended, much to his relief, and as he was packing up his things (thankfully this was the last class of the day), a girl approached him. /Ah,/ he thought, /Here comes the well-wishing female. I suppose I had better be polite./

“Excuse me, Minamino-san,” she began shyly, “I couldn’t help but notice that you look a little…unhappy. Are you feeling all right?”

“I’ve just been a little under the weather,” he told her, smiling for her benefit as he did for all his would-be suitors, “I’m sure I’ll be fine in a few days’ time. Thank you, though, for your concern.”

She blushed as though his thanking her for her kindness were some great honor. “Ah, it was nothing really. I just worry, um, about you.” Was the shade of pink she was turning even possible? “I’ll, uh, go now. Have a nice night!” With that, she raced away clutching her schoolbooks to her chest and narrowly missing running right into the doorframe on her way out.

Kurama shook his head in amusement. He would never understand females if he lived to be another thousand years old. Still, it was best if she never worked up the courage to ask him to date her. He would have to refuse, and she seemed like a nice girl. Not like most of the other slavering, rabid she-dogs that followed him around the school at a distance, clawing and shoving each other for a chance to even so much as catch his scent. It made him shudder a little to think of it. They mostly appeared normal when they spoke to him in the halls, but the minute he turned his back to them he could sense how they truly were. He never saw their evil auras at work, but blast it he knew! It had been the same in the Makai, back when he had been Youko. Not that it mattered here in the human world. They would not actually kill each other over him (he hoped), and that made his life a great deal less complicated.

Now if only he could get away from school without having to stop and talk to over a dozen girls....

He almost made it.

“Shuuichi-kun!”

“Shuuichi-kun!”

Damn Inari for cursing him this way.

He forced his expression into a polite smile and turned to greet the gabble of schoolgirls. They closed in around him like a pack of hounds around a rabbit, making the hairs on the nape of his neck stand on end. Thank goodness his hair was already spiky back there. Once they had him cornered they all started talking at once, and the noise was deafening. All of a sudden, one of the girls latched onto his sleeve. Then another attached herself to his other sleeve. Then more girls came on, crowding closer, their eyes taking on an insane glimmer. Kurama tried to protest, get them to back away, at least make them give him room to breathe! They just kept pressing in, and the noise was so loud he could barely think. He closed his eyes tightly, and when he opened them—a pack of foaming bloodhounds surrounded him, snarling and baying and showing their teeth. Kurama cried out as the pack closed over him with jaws open.

Then he woke up.

Gasping in the wake of his nightmare, Kurama stole a glance at his alarm clock. It was 6:33 in the morning, and it was still summer, which meant no school, no math, and no rabid fan girls. He had fallen asleep at the kitchen table, and there was blanket thrown over him, by his mother presumably.

“I have *got* to stop these late-night study sessions.” he mumbled to himself, dropping his head back onto his arms, which were folding on the table atop a scattering of papers and books. He would not be studying at all if it weren’t for the school he had missed. He had made the excuse to his mother that he wanted a head-start for college, but in reality he would be lucky if he finished all of the work he needed to pass high school. The only reason he had been allowed to take the college entry exam at all was because all of his teachers had maintained the faith that he would pass, despite his bout of absences.

“Why do you work so hard at that?”

The kitsune again narrowly missed chopping his own tongue off with his teeth. “Hiei!” His surprise was due to the fact that Hiei really had been gone for nearly a week, and not just in his recent dream.

The fire demon gave him a skeptical look. “That’s the second time I’ve snuck up on you so easily. You’re slipping, fox.”

“I’ve been distracted,” he replied, “Thinking about things.”

“About me?” Hiei asked, carefully avoiding any particular tone in his words.

Kurama ran a hand through his hair in a self-soothing motion. Really, he was far too ruffled these days. He smiled at Hiei. “Even in my dreams I think of you.” he teased. All right, so it was true, but that didn’t mean he would have said it for any other reason than to tease the short demon.

Hiei leveled his customary scowl at the kitsune. “Don’t you dare get sentimental on me, damn it.” he growled.

Kurama shrugged. He could hardly help that, now could he? He was already sentimental when it came to the fire demon.

At the noncommittal shrug Hiei’s glare took on an almost-pouting quality, due to his large eyes and the way he tilted his head down and to the side, and Kurama’s expression softened. With that look on his face and no venomous words spilling from his mouth, the half-Koorime was almost cute. That feeling Kurama now recognized sparked again inside him. “Come here.” he murmured, reaching a hand out to the fire demon.

Hiei stared at him just like he had after Kurama had first kissed him, and the redhead now recognized that look as one of uncertainty. Well, he’d have to cure him of that.

He rose and went to where the other stood, and slowly, so as not to scare him off, wrapped his arms around Hiei’s shoulders. The difference in their heights was blindingly clear at such close range, and Kurama suppressed a snicker at the thought of how much that difference would increase if he were in his Youko form.

The diminutive demon stared up at him, his brow slightly furrowed in that wary expression, his jaw tightly set as though perhaps he expected Kurama to do something unpleasant to him. He truly seemed younger than he was this way, Kurama reflected. Perhaps that was why he could look almost cute sometimes and absolutely terrifying others; he just seemed younger when he wasn’t mouthing off. Of course, Kurama reminded himself, it would not do—ever—to treat him like a child. Hiei had experienced too much and accumulated too much pride to stand for such an insult.

Hiei flinched when Kurama brushed soft lips over his own, only relaxing once he realized this was no different from the first kiss, the only variation being the location. It wasn’t so bad, even for someone whose main goal in life was to keep everyone at least twenty feet out of his space bubble. He smirked a little when he contemplated how stiff Kurama’s shoulders were going to be if this kiss lasted long. The kitsune was quite a bit taller than him, and had to do a little bending over to accomplish this.

His smirk turned into a look of surprise when Kurama’s hand slid into his wild, black hair and tilted his head back some, his red eyes going even wider than they naturally were when the action made him open his mouth in order to breath better, and Kurama took that opportunity to kiss him more deeply than before. *That* was surely different from the first kiss!

He wasn’t entirely certain he liked that. His eyes slid shut and his eyebrows drew together as he concentrated on that feeling, trying to compare it to anything that he did like so that he might figure out if he wanted it to continue. If he found that he did not, he was more than ready to bite Kurama’s lip open for pushing things like this. He had just drawn the conclusion that maybe this wasn’t so bad, when Kurama licked tentatively the roof of his mouth.

It tickled, and Hiei’s eyes shot open again. He nipped hard at the intruder in warning, and Kurama quickly withdrew both his tongue and his mouth and stepped away from him. The fire apparition was a bit disappointed. He hadn’t really meant to imply that Kurama should stop altogether. He scowled darkly, his ego preventing him from voicing his desire that the fox continue (without trying that tongue thing again, mind you).

Kurama laughed quietly at his expression. “Sorry. I guess I was seeing what I could get away with, just like the horrible fox that I am. You didn’t like it?”

Hiei turned his face away, adopting an imperious glare which he directed at the kitchen wall. “I didn’t like the tongue thing. Don’t do it again.”

“And the rest?” Kurama inquired, curious.

“It wasn’t bad. Do that again if you want; I don’t care.”

The fox boy almost broke his normal range of expression to grin. /Translation: ‘I liked that; could you do it again please?’ I’ll be happy to oblige you, Hiei./

So he kissed him again. This time Hiei relaxed in his arms without hesitation, even tilting his head back of his own accord. Hm, he would have to teach him how to kiss back sometime, just to make things more interesting.

Kurama had come to a conclusion: in order to ‘convince’ Hiei of his feelings, he would have to make sure Hiei enjoyed his company enough to seek it out. Sooner or later, the kitsune hoped the interest would turn emotional. He felt like a heel for using physical pleasure to get what he wanted, but he had been doing it for centuries so why stop now? It was his only trump card, and if Hiei was going to make a habit of taking off for long periods, then Kurama would have to make their time spent together memorable. If in the very tragic event that Hiei decided he did not, in fact, love Kurama too, then the fire demon could leave him without any bad recollections, just memories of the enjoyable experiences the fox had given him. This was in no way what Kurama wanted, and it would hurt him greatly if it occurred, but it was the best way for Hiei to leave if leaving was his choice. No hard feelings, and no leftover strings attached.

The green-eyed young man sighed inwardly. /I’m setting myself up for a failure, aren’t I? I hope it doesn’t come to that. I’m still not sure how I would handle it, and I don’t want to find out./

Hiei squirmed, pushing at his chest, and he realized that they both needed to breathe. Getting lost in his thoughts was a bad way to do things, it seemed. He broke the kiss, and both of them found themselves gasping a little. Hiei was a tad flushed, and Kurama knew he must be the same.

“You know, Hiei,” he managed, “You can kiss me too, if you’d like.”

No sooner had the words left his mouth than Hiei had both hands in his hair, pulling him down for more. With little or no experience, the Koorime boy was still a quick study. Kurama was surprised to say the least; had Hiei only been waiting for an invitation after all?

Though rough and a little clumsy, Hiei’s kissing “technique” lacked no enthusiasm. The effect was electric, and Kurama made a soft noise of approval in the back of his throat. He ran his hands down the fire demon’s back, then back up, tracing his shoulder-blades through the heavy, black cloak. Hiei’s brow furrowed again, and a low sound that was almost a growl rumbled up through his mouth and vibrated into Kurama’s. It produced a ticklish, buzzing sensation, and the fox had to stifle a reflexive laugh.

Then it was time for oxygen again and they broke apart, though neither made a move to back away from the other. Hiei felt strangely limp, as though someone had stuck a ward on him and drained his power. He also felt dizzy, a condition which he had only ever experienced right after a long usage of his Kokuryuuha. His eyes wanted to close again, and he unconsciously leaned forward, pressing lightly against Kurama’s warm body. He was certain that without the fox to hold him up he would buckle. This felt too good, just standing here in the taller demon’s embrace, and he felt content to remain there for a while longer.

Kurama was secretly delighted at the way Hiei all but snuggled into his chest, a sleepy look on his childish face. It was good to know that his skills as a kisser had not vanished with his birth into a human body. Some of that could be attributed to long minutes without air, but he would deny anyone who tried to tell him he didn’t still ‘have it.’

Eventually, though, Hiei’s head cleared and the kitsune sensed that a bit of distance was required to let him collect his dignity. He unwrapped his arms from around the fire demon’s surprisingly wide shoulders (mustn’t forget how strong he is, Kurama reminded himself, and promptly envisioned an unpleasant scenario in which Hiei strangled him for going too far), and gave him some space.

Hiei yawned and stretched a kink from his neck. He had actually enjoyed that, and he would not mind if Kurama did it again sometime. The odd limpness afterwards had been unsettling, but not overly so. He was intrigued by the way the kiss had felt, and wondered if there was more to it than what he had discovered so far. Damned if he was going to ask, though. Whatever he didn’t know, Kurama didn’t need to know he didn’t know. In time, the fox would probably show him…whatever else there was to that feeling.

/Hn. Can’t believe I’m actually looking forward to it,/ he mused, /Kurama is too good at this kind of thing./

“Will you be going now,” Kurama asked, “Or would you like to stay? Mother won’t mind you if I tell her something feasible.”

“Don’t bother,” Hiei replied, “You lie to that woman enough without doing it on my behalf.”

Kurama laughed sheepishly. “You’re right. Would you at least like to have breakfast before you go? It’s early; she shouldn’t wake up if we’re quiet.”

Hiei copped an indifferent look. “Why not?”

Kurama’s smile very nearly took in his ears as he went to make Hiei some oatmeal. The persnickety little demon would probably complain about how oatmeal was not “real food,” and would then proceed to eat it anyway, knowing him. That wasn’t what had Kurama smiling, though. It was the fact that Hiei was starting to warm to his presence. The fire apparition would never have consented to having breakfast with him before.

Aw, they're getting closer. I hope none of you choked on the sap, folks. I lose more reviewers that way. As always, I love knowing what you think. Just a reminder from the first chapter, however: I'm sensitive to bad comments, so if you didn't like it please be nice when you say so! No !#@%!$^@ or &*%$^$ or stuff like that. If you've gotta flame, flame politely. It's what Kurama would do.