Humidity

A/N: This story is so near completion!  I am envisioning two more chapters following this one, a fuller chapter entitled “Snow Eater” and a shorter epilogue-style chapter called “Fair Weather,” and then this portion of the “Black Roses” storyline will be completed.

 

In the meantime, this chapter has, with the exception of a few little details, e.g. the scientific name of the plant Kurama sails, been completed since the date indicated below, a full month ago.  I thank everyone so much for their patience and for continuing to read this story, which is so near full completion now.  I shall be working to bring out the last installations of this story shortly; until then, read and enjoy!

 

Humidity

Chapter VI

Clarity

23 November 2011

 

The storm’s effects flooded, swelled and stagnated in the ditches and little passes of the area the next day.  While the break in weather had cleared the air in most places, the odd traveler who happened upon the premises of the temple would find the humidity still hung heavy there.

 

These would have to be hard-pressed travelers, with a destination in mind, not some chance stragglers.  For many reasons—the privacy and safety of the transient apparitions populating Genkai’s sanctuary, as a surety—but most practical, a chance straggler would right then have lacked the ability to happen upon the temple by chance, as just then the base of the steps leading up to said temple, and all the ground level with or inclined below that base, was covered in water.

 

And so it was purpose that morning that navigated a lily pad over the incongruously still surface of what had been excessive, turbulent rain and flood, tip pointed like a boat’s prow toward those steps.  The leaf was sized much larger than any of its cohorts outside the Amazon, as intended by its captain: indeed, it had to be so large because it had to accommodate atop it two men, one the captain; both redheaded, both anticipating a desired apparition situated atop those steps.

 

Kurama was as placid as the water over the surface on which they were floating; but Kuwabara tensed his jaw, screwed up his eyes as though offended by the gold reflected and magnified off the waters, and fidgeted to a point that Kurama had to remind him that it was a leaf they floated on, not an actual raft, and that unlike the Gingerbread Man’s fox, Kurama would not wait to be soaked before dispatching his ginger, should it come to that.

 

“I can’t believe I left her for batteries!” Kuwabara moaned, digging his fingers in either unfortunate temple of hair, looking as though the stillness pained him.  “It’s not like we really needed batters.  I mean, what man can’t start a fire?!”

 

“In the wet?” Kurama tried to placate him.

 

Kuwabara would have nothing of it.  “Average man aside, I can see in the dark!  It’s not like she can’t replace me with batteries, but there’s nothing in the world that can replace Yukin—Uh.”  He stopped short his raving, and sobered as Kurama eyed him out of a suspiciously, and thus deliberately, blank face.  “I can’t believe I just said that out loud,” he muttered, then contorted his face again and flung one arm wildly.  “Kurama, do something to this thing, we’re gonna float right on by, then I’ll have to gamble with leeches!”

 

“No you won’t,” Kurama muttered, though with no realistic intent that Kuwabara would actually hear him.  Methodically he knelt, and laid one palm flat over the center point of the leaf’s veins; he held it there for several moments, then rose and backed cautiously away, motioning for Kuwabara to do the same on the opposite side.

 

His efforts produced a wind sail, a giant white flower whose petals reached high and caught a favorable breeze, and brought the two to the rising temple steps.

 

At the top of the steps stood two silhouettes, waiting on them.  Long before their arrival, Kurama had picked up at least one of the demon’s traces, and so had been unconcerned.

 

Kuwabara leapt over the first five or six steps, and already scrambled up the entirety as Kurama gained the first leisurely quarter, arms outstretched until they firmly clasped their target, or targets.

 

“Yukina!” he exclaimed, his hands enveloping hers to the point of hers no longer being visible.  “I’m so sorry I left you to weather the storm alone.  The road flooded before I could get back and some people held me down and wouldn’t let me up until the storm had passed.”  Looking at her anxiously, he half-whispered, “Can you forgive me?”

 

The composure of Yukina’s face first wavered, then thoroughly crinkled in mirth.  “How could I not, under those circumstances, Kazuma?  Besides, I wasn’t alone.  Hiei stood with me all through the night.”

 

“Oh, yeah?”  Kuwabara gave Hiei, who stood still with arms and features crossed, a cursory look-over, before saying, “thanks for looking out for Yukina, shrimp.”

 

There might, might have been a note—not even a mote—of jealousy in his tone, which Hiei picked up nonetheless.  The Jaganshi made a disgusted exhalation through the nose, then looked past those lovers, to his own breaching the top of the stair.

 

“‘Wouldn’t let him up’?” Hiei repeated Kuwabara’s defense back to Kurama.

 

The Fox smiled, and raised one hand of dismissal.  “I had no part.  We can thank a group of convenience store customers taking shelter from the storm, and not wanting to be held liable for a madman running out and being struck by lightning or washed down road.  The manager called Kuwabara’s house, and Shizuru asked me while I was coming this way if I might rescue her ‘idiot brother’ before he was put under more serious arrest.”

 

Hiei smirked, but his expression remained part-way skeptical.  “How did you know I was here?” he asked.  Kurama’s attire was an embroidered tunic outfit; his “traveling clothes,” the sort he often wore in the Demon World.  Much as he’d have liked to, Hiei had not forgotten his initial reason for coming to the temple the night before.  Against his will he flinched.

 

“When I came home and you weren’t there, this seemed the likeliest place after,” Kurama replied simply enough, a lilt of the eyebrows the only gesture that betrayed his taking notice.

 

Not that he was the only one.  “Oh, Hiei.”  Yukina looked over inquiringly.  “Are you sure you’re okay?  You just shivered like last night.”  She spoke innocently enough, but Kuwabara and even Kurama angled their faces curiously.

 

In turn Hiei angled his away self-consciously.  “What cause would I have in all this heat?” he replied.

 

Out of the corner of his eyes she smiled her apologies.  “If you’re sure,” was all she said, and with Kuwabara she turned and walked toward the temple.

 

Kurama watched them go, then looked at Hiei in a manner guarded, but no less solicitous.  “Were you ill last night?”

 

Depending on how one termed ‘ill’… 

 

“I told her,” Hiei replied flatly.

 

Something crossed Kurama’s face, too swift and evanescent to be caught.  “And?” he pursued.

 

Since Hiei’s stricken face had dried up with the rain, instead he turned a barren, washed out one on his friend, and monotonously pronounced, “She knew.”

 

There was where that stricken look had gone, off of Hiei’s face and onto Kurama’s.  “She knew,” he repeated.

 

Not often was Kurama caught in the snare of unlikely news.  The rare occasion of success never failed to amuse Hiei, and even now he smiled grimly as he related, “She at least suspected a relation between her brother and me for a while; she’s known since before I first visited Mukuro.”  He gave Kurama a bemused look, challenging a rejoinder.

 

His friend smiled helplessly in turn.  “We’ve underestimated Yukina,” Kurama managed ponderously.  “Unduly, surely.  She’s as courageous as anyone else in our group; how not as intuitive?”  Hiei rolled his eyes.   

 

Kurama wasn’t done.  “Don’t consider your … being ill,” he mused, “an impotent gesture, in light of her knowledge.”

 

Now Hiei glowered: that was precisely what he’d been brooding over this morning.

 

“Sometimes our feelings persist,” Kurama continued slowly, pacifically, “even in the face of diametrically opposed facts.  Yukina’s esteem of you, in this case.”  He smiled.  “Or, for another, wasting yourself away on account of my welfare, when you in fact saved it.”

 

Exposed: Hiei felt all his body’s gravity plummet, and pool in his feet.  “Or you,” he returned hurriedly, “whom other transients evidently revere as their patron saint of fluidity, worrying yourself to death about how you should fit it.”

 

Where Kurama’s admonition had been blanketed in jest, Hiei’s retort was spoken earnestly, imploringly, and Kurama blinked in surprise.  Hiei broke eye contact and stared at his boots.

 

He still felt Kurama’s eyes upon him.  “Hiei, are you feeling al—?”

 

“Returned from the marital excursions, Lord Kurama?”

 

Hiei bristled and Kurama turned placidly as another demon, short and wet, emerged from the trees.  “You don’t have to call me that, Denbun,” said the Fox mildly.  “How are you settling in?”

 

Denbun sniffed, or perhaps he sneezed.  “The old psychic is out of town, and last night I was rained on.”  He considered Hiei.  “It seems you crawled out of the treetops at last, Jagan-master.  I don’t blame you; they’re inadequate coverage in that kind of weather.”

 

Looking between the redhead and the troll, Hiei managed, “You two know each other?”

 

Kurama nodded.  “Denbun has resided in the House of Yomi for many years, or did.  I’m sure you’ve seen his brother, Youda?”  Hiei scrutinized their interlocutor again, and felt a new sense of clarity added to the recognition that had bothered him before.

 

For his part, Youda’s brother looked no less enlightened, and just as dour as when Hiei saw him first.  “I’m sure that my taking leave of his House hasn’t winded Lord Yomi’s moral any the worse,” he said with an undertone of distaste.  “Not with silky distractions to turn his attentions inward from more important matters.”

 

While listening to this nearly accusative discontent, Kurama’s lips were pressed pensively together, his brow politely furrowed; these features became slightly more pronounced, before they lifted, and he in turn pronounced, silkily, “And might Lord Shura also count as such an inward-turning distraction?”  Denbun’s eyes widened minutely as he blinked rapidly, then narrowed again resolutely, as he said nothing.

 

Smiling self-assuredly, Kurama pursued, “I think what ought to be kept in mind is that so long as a being, be that being a king or a former king or anything else, is still bound to such necessities as earth and air, hunger and fatigue, I do not see why we, also bound, should condemn them for acting on ties in relation to cohorts of their condition, and those instincts or feelings that accompany.  To presume to deny them, we should first deny ourselves, which I think would require, first and foremost, our own isolation from as many ‘distractions’ as possible.”  Kurama raised an eyebrow as he considered their present surroundings.  “By way of retreating to the wilderness, for example, or perhaps a temple.”

 

By now Kurama had of course made his point, and only continued to elaborate on it now either for gratuity or burlesque; appropriately, the smirk and the grimace worn by Hiei and Denbun respectively, further set and caricaturized themselves, as the Fox concluded:

 

“As that appears to be the path that you have chosen, Denbun, I wholly understand and encourage you in your endeavors, speaking as an inherently rustic creature myself.  I’ve seen such respites yield many beneficiary results to those who have undergone them in the past.”  Wryly: “Lord Yomi, for one.”

 

And then, more seriously: “I would only caution you that such retreat of the person does not guarantee isolation of the self from external influence or criticism.  As you are surely well-aware, even Lord Yomi and myself are in no danger of well-regard for infallibility.”  Shrugging this off, he demurred, “But then no one is an island.”

 

The corners of Denbun’s mouth creaked upward.  Due to Kurama’s rhetoric or the troll’s own volition, Hiei wasn’t sure; but there was something ironic in his tone as he conceded, “This may be so, Lord Kurama, coming from you and how well-influenced even you are,” and walked away in direction of the temple, and dryness.

 

“I doubt he’ll find a better sermon in there,” Hiei remarked with his own dryness.

 

The gentleness left Kurama’s smile, which more bore semblance to a self-indulgent smirk.  “I am a Fox, Hiei.  If by virtue of that I am inherently rustic, then consequently, I am also given over to the occasional, decadent proclivities.  I have been styled ‘King of Thieves,’ after all.”

 

Hiei snorted, then quickly sobered, and not looking at Kurama, softly asked, “What marital excursions’ did he speak of?”

 

“Pardon?”

 

Sometimes Kurama had a human’s ears, though Hiei wondered if this was selective or no.  Facing the other demon, Hiei cleared his throat, and said more loudly, “I met that demon yesterday.  He said something about Yomi’s twitterpation with his white Fox-consort.”  That said, he waited.

 

Kurama listened with no change in expression, and just as impassively he replied, “He would be speaking of Katsura, then.”

 

The Jaganshi blinked.  “Who?”

 

“Katsura,” Kurama repeated.  “Yomi’s consort.”  Hiei looked at him blankly, and he appeared slightly uncomfortable.  “Not unlike most people, demon or human, the governor of Gandhara is sometimes given over to desires that basic companionship cannot fulfill.  Recently he approached me, and requested my services—”

 

Hiei winced, feeling his intestines twist into knots.

 

“—as a matchmaker,” Kurama finished.

 

Again Hiei winced, this time in confusion.  “A what?”

 

“A matchmaker.”  Kurama smiled and this time it was unadulterated amusement.  “Yomi has a preferred type, which I am intimately connected with.”  Hiei raised an eyebrow.  “I didn’t just sprout out of the earth with my plants, Hiei; although dens are underground.”

 

Both eyebrows, this time in enlightenment: “Other foxes.”

 

Kurama nodded.  “Those connections had gone dormant the past few decades, but when Yomi sought me out, I sought them out in turn.  No one is an island, or a solitary hole in the ground, as it turns out.”

 

The other demon liked that metaphor less.  “And that led you to Katsura?”

 

“Who may be inherently rustic, but jumped at the opportunity to move in closer to more worldly affairs.  I was glad for that,” Kurama said, pursing his lips.  “I felt less like I was calling on my kin in search of a mere commodity.”

 

Hiei rolled his eyes: add “being a pimp” to the other imagined crimes piled on the scaffold of masochistic moral guilt; at least he had feared disclosure to Yukina on genuine grounds of criminality. 

 

“I think it will be a good match, though,” the Fox said brightly.

 

He nodded slowly.  “Between Yomi and Katsura.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Yomi’s white Fox-consort.”

 

“Ye—.”  Kurama blinked, eyes illumined by something other than the emergent sun.  He looked at Hiei, brows turned down slightly, and in a loaded tone, asked, “Who did you think Denbun referred to?”

 

Hiei stared at his feet, suddenly roasting in shame.  “Hn—”

 

“Guys!  Hey, guys!”

 

Perverse relief cooled Hiei as he looked up and saw Kuwabara sprinting toward them, rescuing him from having to answer.

 

“Kurama!” Kuwabara specified, panting.  “Yukina…” He paused, sneezed.

 

“Lived through the night?” inquired the other redhead mildly.  “Despite you almost being arrested for belligerence getting back to her?”

 

“Oh hah,” Kuwabara said, running his thumb under his nose.  “I was going to say, that Yukina just old me that word of the wedding and you scouting info on the Koorime got back to her brother.”  Eyes alight: “He came out to her.  Uh—I mean, I don’t mean came out to her, like gay or whatever, I don’t even know who the guy is yet, but—I mean, he came to her and said, ‘I’m your brother’ or whatever, because he heard.  You were right, Kurama.”

 

Now Hiei tilted up his head, and his brows with them.  “Right about what?”

 

Very slightly, almost but not quite imperceptibly, Kurama thinned his lips while Kuwabara plunged on, “Well Yukina’s been kind of depressed about the prospects of none of her family coming for the wedding, and we figured that at least in her brother’s case he probably already knew about her.  I mean, one, she’s an ice maiden mixing with general pop, and that’s kind of inconspicuous in itself; but if that’s not enough, then two, she uh, kind of keeps infamous company, you know?”  He gestured round to Hiei and Kurama, while also pointing at himself.  “Us guys, and she’s been with us a lot of the way, she was bound to be noticed, not just by lowlifes.”  He frowned, then perked up and continued, “So if he already knew about Yukina, he probably just needed some prompting to come out, like bait.  And Kurama over here”—again he gestured to the other redhead, who acknowledged it uncomfortably—“figured that if her brother caught word that people were asking around about her background, he might think we were closing in on him too, and crack under pressure.”

 

Hiei nodded, face drawn up in an exaggerated Ah.  “Kurama is a strategizing bastard,” he affirmed, side-glancing said bastard, who resembled a worm wriggling on a hook.

 

Looking pointedly ahead, Kurama said, “I’m surprised you came racing out with this news before learning the brother’s actual identity, Kuwabara.”

 

“Nah, you guys should come hear too,” Kuwabara replied insistently.  He laughed.  “Urameshi’s gonna flip when he comes home and hears what he’s missed, but he’s been trying to make that martial arts tournament since junior high!—though it seems kinda silly now, considering we’ve all actually participated in way more extreme since then…”  He shrugged.  “But you’ve both helped out a lot, and you’ve known Yukina almost as long as I have, so.”   

 

Hiei coughed to disguise a snort, and before Kurama could say anything in response, he jumped in: “That’s nonsense.  She’s your bride, this should be a moment between you two.  We’ll wait out here.”

 

“Uh…” Kuwabara shrugged.  “If you guys are sure.”

 

“Very,” Hiei insisted dryly.  “We’ve done our part, I wouldn’t think of putting myself further out than I already am.”  This said, he watched almost sadistically as Kuwabara returned to the temple, estimating he had all of two minutes to reap the response, and that was guessing generously.

 

Eyes forward on the temple, he said no less dryly, “Did you ever even bother with dispatching Toya, or what that a ruse?”

 

Out of the corner of his eye Kurama finally pinked, and answered, “I planned to, if the announcement to didn’t flush out anything in a timely manner.”

 

Hiei smirked self-deprecatingly.  “You deceptive smartass.”

 

“Are you sermonizing me now, Hiei?” Kurama inquired banteringly.

 

“Maybe I should strive better to be a positive role model,” Hiei mused.  “I am Yukina’s brother now.”

 

“And she thinks no less of you now that you know she knows.”  Looking a little smug, Kurama said, “I told you.”

 

He showed his friend his appreciation via a silent snarl.  “Don’t you know it all?” he asked sarcastically, and then looked forward again.  The black fabric across his chest rose visibly as he took a breath, and then tugged down back into place as he anchored a hand in either pocket.

 

“Come on,” he invited Kurama over his shoulder, already walking.  “I want to see the look on his face when he knows too.” 

*** 

The noon hour found the overgrown Nymphaeaceae once more floating two figures down the floodway.  Its original captain resumed encouraging its course, this time more actively, because sometimes going back is harder to do than was the initial meander that took one out with it.  For all that though, Kurama gazed stoically over the drowned road, and soon they would reach a point where each could rest on their own two feet again.

 

Hiei of course could have inconspicuously returned to the city much faster on his own, as Kurama had pointed out, saying he wouldn’t take offense.  But Hiei had declined; or rather, he had wordlessly boarded the amphibious leaf, and sat cross-legged, leaning back into several of the sail’s petals and contemplating the vein-work of the deck as they drifted along, saying nothing for a while.

 

The look on Kuwabara’s face when Yukina named her brother had been the cream of that goof’s comical faces by far, and Yusuke would sorely regret missing it when he returned; it was one that the aforementioned brother would certainly relish in memory for some time to come.  Of course after a prolonged recovery period, that look gave way to one of suspicion and admonition: If Hiei was the long not-so-lost brother, why hadn’t he said anything before, especially with Yukina searching right there in front of him?

 

In a bored voice Hiei had given his reasons, already refuted by Kurama scores times over, and finally refuted forever by the girl ever at question.  From Kuwabara though he received no refutation, which he had taken for granted and which was just as well—he didn’t need too many people in one setting trying to drill into him what a good person he was, and counted on Kuwabara at least to side with him.

 

—But then that idiot had gone and betrayed him as well, standing there gawking at him in genuine amazement, and finally getting out, “I thought you didn’t care what people thought of you?”

 

Hiei stiffened, then rolled his eyes, cocked his head, shrugged one shoulder, and retorted, “I don’t care about people.”

 

Which of course condemned him further, because Kuwabara then looked curiously from Kurama to Yukina, and with a knowing look back to Hiei, who at that moment might have melted Kuwabara’s face if given half the chance and no repercussion, it was so smug.  “Yeah Hiei,” the psychic humored.  “You keep mouthing those words for all those tough demons in Makai to hear; I’ll keep an eye on you in Human World when they’re all not looking, okay?”

 

And now Hiei sat brooding over his spot of leaf, thinking which chewed worse on his ego: the self-portrait of him as the criminal unworthy of being loved, or the sentimentalist ripe for jest.

 

Suddenly:

 

“I love you,” Kurama murmured.  Hiei glanced up, over.  Kurama was still looking ahead, but something other than the sun warmed his contemplative face.  “I don’t know when I started to, but I love you.  I love your loyalty, your intuition that things are amiss, and your wisdom to contain your solicitations for when they are especially necessary.”  His lips tugged upward.  “I love your attempts to shroud your vulnerabilities, and your substance that lets it fall loose now and then.  Also—”

 

Here now he looked Hiei full in the face, the smile full on his own.  “I love that I can say I love you, for being the one person to genuinely make me sick.”

 

Hiei stared at him from under deadpan brows, which crinkled as his face loosened into something too suppressed for a full-on smile, but warmer than a smirk.  “Hn,” he said, and looked at the “floor.”

 

“But Hiei,” Kurama continued.

 

Hiei looked up again, in time to see a fair set of knuckles come sailing his way, just above eye level.  Above level with his pair of eyes, at least.  He wheezed in shock, and dumbstruck stared vacantly first ahead then up as he fell over the edge of the leaf with a matter-of-fact splash.  The world wavered and turned murky as he floated below the surface a moment, cloak billowing around him.  And then he blinked, kicked his feet indignantly, broke the surface sputtering, and turned his head toward the leaf, stared in bewildered expectation at Kurama.

 

Who stared back self-assured, and jovially called out, “Yoko Kurama is a silver Fox, Hiei, not white.”

 

Hiei spat water out his mouth, which then contorted into a grimace, but he dared not say anything in retort, and only muttered, “I deserve it,” as he swam back to the leaf.

 

“It’s not entirely unjust,” Kurama conceded, extending one hand toward the water.  Hiei took it, and didn’t mind that he sloshed water on the leaf and its captain as he was pulled back aboard.

 

“I wasn’t right in the head,” he said apologetically, dismissively, and shrugged out of his sodden cloak.  It made a squishy sound as it pooled around his feet, and he stepped to one side of it, then knelt, leaning back on his heels, hoping to expose himself as much as possible, that he might dry at least a little in the sun.

 

He caught Kurama looking at him—and nonchalantly looking away—, and smirked.  “Enjoy it while you can,” he goaded the Fox, pushing one giant lily petal back in invitation.  “My sister’s wedding is coming up, and I’ve been in the Human World too long.”

 

“Oh?”  Kurama gave him a curious look.  “Back to Alaric?”

 

The Jaganshi rolled his eyes at the intentionally, barely concealed tone of Kurama’s voice.  “No,” he replied.  “Mukuro put me on leave, so to speak, until I reconciled a few personal issues.  And somehow she’ll know if I return with that task only halfway met, not just pertaining to you.”  Kurama angled his head in bemusement.  “And I’m not skipping out on the wedding,” Hiei continued, “since you were wondering.”  Kurama confirmed this with an unapologetically guilty smile.  “I actually very much intend on being present, which is also why I intend on leaving sooner rather than later.  It’s my deadline.” 

 

“Deadline?” Kurama repeated, tone conveying that he half-comprehended what Hiei was talking about, and was fishing for the other half.

 

“I told her I would,” Hiei strung him along.  Kurama gave him a mock-exasperated look, and Hiei smirked as he kicked his cloak in the redhead’s general direction.  “You may talk big,” he jeered.  “But a picture’s worth a thousand words, isn’t that what your humans say?”

 

“Yes, and what picture do you refer to?” asked Kurama as he picked a wet, hollow black sleeve off the tongue of his shoe, and joined Hiei beneath the petals. 

 

Hiei smirked superiorly.  “The one under here,” he said, pointing to his headband.  “I found my way back to that isle once; it should be even simpler the second time.”

 

Simpler than he would appear on arrival at least, especially with the company that insisted on going with him.   

------------ 



A/N: I’m curious to know, if anyone would so opine, the effect on the chapter inferred by my decision to omit the actual revelatory scenes pertaining to Hiei’s actual relation to Yukina.  Or in the case of him telling her, I guess I should say the elaboration scene, since the past chapter closed with his actual telling her.  I almost included a flashback in this chapter following up on that scene, but I felt that drawing it out would be just that—drawing it out, with about as much accomplished after as beating over a dead horse.  I mean, last chapter wound up to me having this almost baroque feel the way I wound up writing some of the scenes, particularly the last one, and I liked the effect but I felt if I carried it over to this chapter is would become too gratuitously graphic.  Was I wise to summarize rather than give a detail-by-detail account?  Thoughts?

 

Anyway, the next chapter I anticipate shall be called “Snow Eater,” returning to the overall weather motif of this story; and as that and the parting lines of this chapter  might indicate, our children of scandal are taking a brief trip home.  Hopefully the coincidence of the icy weather coming up and the current winter weather around Yours Truly will further motivate me to bring that to you all the sooner.  In the meantime, I wish you all a happy holiday, whichever ones you and yours celebrate; thanks for reading! – 12/23/11