~Once Burned~

~Once Burned~


Disclaimer: YYH is not and never has been mine. If it were mine, Hiei and Kurama would have a lot more chemistry than they do, and this story would actually be possible. Since it isn’t really possible, why are you reading this? Oh well, don’t answer that, just read and review. No flames please, I’m delicate.

This fanfiction will eventually be NC-17, but this chapter is safe. I’ll warn you when it isn’t anymore so you may stop reading at that point if you choose.


It wasn’t that Hiei was anything special to look at. As a matter of fact, quite a few demons would have thought the Koorime halfbreed was an ugly little thing. Kurama wasn’t going to go that far, but the fact was, Hiei was in no way beautiful. If anything he was childish in his appearance, with his small nose and large eyes that made even his glare look more like a pout sometimes. He might have been described as cute, except that he was far too mean and nasty for that word to apply to him. He had small, unfeminine irises that only seemed smaller when he widened his eyes, spiky hair that resembled an exploded pinecone, a thin, grimly set mouth that was always frowning, and dark, sharp eyelashes that added a touch of the gothic to his perpetual scowl. In short, there was truly nothing attractive about him, at least by a kitsune’s standards.

It wasn’t that he had a great personality to make up for that, either. Hiei was at best unfriendly and at worst a standoffish, antisocial, sharp-tongued, evil-tempered hellion. If he wasn’t taunting you he was killing you, and of course that was the only way you’d escape from his scathing wit; by dying. There was no way to get on his good side, because he didn’t have one. The one soft spot in his heart was reserved for Yukina, and to hell with anything or anyone else. It was clear that if he worried about the rest of the team at all, it was merely because they had earned his grudging respect. He made a point of making sure everyone knew he didn’t give a rat’s ass about them, and that their efforts to make him their “friend” were only going to get them set on fire or worse. That didn’t stop anyone from trying, but at least the warnings were given so they had no right to complain when they got toasted.

There was no reason at all that Hiei should have attracted Kurama. Unfortunately, Fate has a real cute way of screwing people over like that.

The reincarnated kitsune had first noticed it was happening during the Dark Tournament. He wasn’t sure what part of the tournament it had started happening *during,* he just knew that by the time Yusuke had defeated Toguro, he had begun to feel very strange whenever he was near the temperamental fire demon. At first he had thought the odd feeling came from Hiei, that some sort of fluctuation in the other’s youki was causing it. Over the next weeks, however, he had come to realize that the feeling was internalized.

It was difficult to describe. It felt a little like what Hiei himself might have felt like, if the fire demon were a feeling and not a person. It left Kurama both hot and cold sometimes, it frustrated him, it annoyed him yet intrigued him all at once, and it was damn elusive; he couldn’t pin it down no matter what he tried. Sometimes the feeling amplified until Kurama felt certain it would burn him alive from the inside like Hiei’s own Kokuryuuha. Those times were blessedly rare, limited to late nights when Kurama lay staring at his bedroom ceiling, or to the few times when Hiei deigned to speak seriously with him instead of being sarcastic and rude.

One night, when Kurama lay awake staring at his ceiling, with that feeling blazing within him, the redhead happened to look out his window. There was Hiei, asleep in the tree next to Kurama’s house, the tree that separated the Minamino home from the home next door.

It did not surprise him that the Koorime boy was out there. What startled him was that when he got up and went to the window, Hiei made no move to wake up. He was truly asleep, not merely dozing, and that was what Kurama found odd. For someone so aloof and guarded to actually fall asleep in what he had always considered “enemy territory” was not just unlikely, it was inconceivable. Kurama couldn’t believe it.

He tried everything from tapping on the window to making horrible faces at the fire demon in the tree, and still Hiei remained unmoving save for the steady rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.

/Well, I’ll be damned,/ Kurama mused, /He’s as out-cold as when he’s just used the Dragon spell. Is he really that at ease, out there in my tree?/

That thought sparked another; the one that the fox would later realize had sealed his fate. Hiei trusted him. For all that the diminutive demon kept his distance, he still afforded Kurama his trust.

That realization came as a jolt to the kitsune’s system. The feeling he had not recognized until now suddenly became blindingly clear, as it roared up with an intensity unlike anything before. Of course, knowing what the feeling was did nothing to comfort Kurama. For the life of him he could not understand why he should be experiencing *that* in relation to *Hiei* of all people. It made no sense; there was nothing about Hiei that should have attracted him, let alone made him feel…that way.

Kurama sat back down on his bed with a heavy thump, stunned by the notion which had embedded itself in his mind.

He had felt affection for others in the past, so affection was nothing new. If it had been only that, it would not have puzzled him so much. He had certainly felt a strong affection for Kuronoue; the pain of his death had been proof enough of that. He had admittedly grown attached to Yusuke, and Kuwabara, and Botan, even to Koenma (though he admitted that last to himself with semi-reluctance). He had made a point of trying *not* to get attached to Hiei, because the fire demon would only run off whenever he felt like it. Kurama couldn’t hold onto him, so he hadn’t tried. Yet somehow, despite his efforts he had grown attached anyway, it seemed. More so than to the others.

/Why?/ he wondered, /Why would it be him? There are so many others I could have chosen. Why am I falling for the one person who is sure to reject me?/

His thoughts echoed back at him, providing no answers. He would just have to figure it out in time.

So he waited, and looked after his team, and went to school, and kept his mother in the dark about what Shuuichi Minamino really did with his free time. He waited and tried not to stare at Hiei too much or too often, and gave sorting out his thoughts and feelings the good old college try. He waited, and the battle with Sensui left the whole group exhausted and wondering if they would survive their next challenge, and left Kurama frantically considering telling Hiei the truth even if it made no difference. He waited, and the notion passed, overtaken by the fear that he would lose what little camaraderie he and the others had coaxed out of Hiei so far. He waited, and the Three Emperors agreed to Yusuke’s new tournament, and Kurama found that he and Hiei were enemies once more, just like the first time they had met, and the time when Kurama had sided with Yusuke instead of Hiei. He waited, and the tournament ended, and everyone was still alive and they could all go about their lives as they pleased, and Kurama reached a conclusion:

He couldn’t afford to wait any longer.

So three-and-a-half years after the Urameshi Team was formed, Kurama stopped waiting and set about making a plan. It was summer, and there was nothing keeping him busy, and Hiei was leaving for the Makai again soon. Now was the time to act if he was ever going to see some results. With this in mind (along with several worries which all involved his mother), Kurama extended an invitation for Hiei to come spar with him the next time it was cool enough outside to do so. It was not a fantastic start to his plan, but it would do. He knew he did not have much time for perfectionism.

Kurama woke on a morning several days after posing the suggestion to Hiei, and knew this would be the day. If Hiei agreed to the casual sparring match and showed, it would be today. The weather was perfect from what he could see through his bedroom window, with a bright blue sky and those puffy, pure white kinds of clouds that signal that it is neither too hot nor too cold. The fox-boy went to his window and opened it, letting in a cool, but not cold breeze that confirmed his assumption. Well, he had better get ready or Hiei would come before he had had a chance to eat breakfast.

“Ohayo, Shuuichi.” his mother greeted him as he entered the kitchen.

He smiled at her in response, and fixed himself a bowl of leftover rice and an egg. A light, simple breakfast would be good for a morning like this.

“You’re thinking about something,” Shiori said, “I can tell.”

“Just wondering how I scored on my college entrance exam.” Kurama replied. It didn’t even make him wince internally to lie to her anymore, which in retrospect made him a little sad. He dismissed that unpleasant thought, telling himself that as long as the lies kept her happy, everything was fine. And besides, now that he had said it he really was wondering about the exam. He had needed to skip quite a bit of high school during the Makai tournament, though thankfully his mother hadn’t found out (she had enjoyed her vacation with her new husband immensely, and it had never occurred to her that her son had not been home the whole time). The school he had missed had been difficult to make up, and Kaito had made a point of reminding him that his scores were dropping. With severe effort Kurama had elevated his grades again, but his lapses might still affect his college entry. He just hoped he got into the one he was aiming for, even if he didn’t get in at the top of his class.

A black blur zapped through the kitchen when Shiori’s back was turned, and a banana disappeared from the bowl on the table. Kurama smiled to himself. If Hiei was hungry, he could have just asked. Of course, that would have been doing things the easy way, and that just wasn’t the fire demon’s style. The kitsune took his sparring partner’s brief appearance to mean that breakfast time was over, and he should hurry up. He finished his rice and egg, told his mother he was going for a walk, and strolled out the front door at an easy pace. There was no need to rush just to assuage Hiei’s impatience.

The small demon was waiting for him in their usual sparring place, a park on the far side of town. Hiei was tapping his foot and grumbling by the time Kurama arrived, because the fox, not having super-speed, had needed to take the bus.

“If you’d agree to someplace closer,” Kurama chided him, “It wouldn’t take me so long to get here. Some of us have to use alternate modes of transport.”

“That’s a lame excuse for being slow, Kurama,” Hiei answered gruffly, “If you’d leave the house earlier you could arrive before I had to come and get you.”

Kurama shrugged indulgingly, not wanting to ruin a perfectly good spar with arguments. “Shall we?” he asked, taking a relaxed fighting stance.

“Hn.” came Hiei’s characteristic response to yes-or-no questions.

Their fight was more like a well-rehearsed dance, if such a cliché phrase were to be permitted. Each knew the moves of the other well, having fought against and beside one another many times. The movements they exchanged were fluid, smooth, as though they had been doing this dance all of their lives. They matched each other strike for strike, neither connecting, both whirling on the dangerously exhilarating edge of their perceptions, searching for an opening. There were few surprises between them, not much they had not seen before, but this did not detract from the excitement of it. Far from it; knowing what your opponent might do next only added to the challenge.

A step, a lunge, a flash of steel and a snap of greenery, the waltz continued for hours. Kurama let himself sink into the flow and nearly forgot his objective. It was easy to do. When he fought Hiei like this, it was almost as if they were one, and Hiei knew him and he knew Hiei and nothing else mattered but the steps they took and where the next stroke fell. If the fire demon knew him so intimately, what need was there for anything else? That was how Kurama felt whenever they sparred this way. Unfortunately, the need for something else was what had prompted him to arrange this, and he could not forsake that. Once this was over and done with, Hiei would return to being his usual unsociable self, and Kurama would be left with only that feeling and nothing to show for it. He could not let that happen this time. This time, he fully intended to at least leave an impression.

So it was with no small measure of trepidation that Kurama used a dirty trick.

He was used to using tricks to defeat his enemies, but he was usually straightforward when fighting Hiei. Today was a special occasion, however, so he felt it necessary to deviate from his normal pattern of behavior.

Hiei all but squawked when the grass beneath him suddenly exploded upward, enclosing him in a virtually impenetrable barrier of green. He could no longer see his opponent, just the wall of grass that seemed to trap him more the harder he struggled. He slashed at it, unwittingly causing the grass to ooze sticky, green fluid that coated his hair, his face, everything. The fluid only made the tall, thick shoots stick to him more tenaciously, and the thin, white hairs on the edges of the grass blades acted like thousands of tiny hooks that clung to Hiei with seemingly no intention of letting go.

The halfbreed stilled, logic setting in once shock and anger cooled. Fighting wasn’t getting him anywhere. He considered just burning the whole lot of the stuff, but when he attempted to activate his youki, he found to his dismay that he was too saturated in the thick liquid to light up. His initial panicked hacking-and-slashing spree had quite effectively rendered him helpless. Damn it all…and Kurama had known instinctively how he would react, he would have bet money on it if he’d had any.

The grass parted several feet ahead of him, out of sword-range, and Kurama poked his head into view.

“Comfy?” the kitsune asked with a smug grin.

“Go to hell, fox.” Hiei spat back, his eyes narrowing.

Kurama laughed. “Don’t be that way. I won fair and square. I used my knowledge of my opponent to predict what you would do, and I acted upon it as any sensible fighter would have. It can’t even be considered cheating, really, because I was only using my own skills and the resources at hand.”

Hiei snorted. That was a fancy way of saying “I cheated, but you can’t do anything about it.” Still, he had to give Kurama his victory; there was no way he’d be getting out of this mess anytime soon.

“Good match, Kurama,” he admitted sullenly, “Now let me go. This stuff is nasty.”

Kurama nodded and waded through the grass, making it shrink behind him. When he reached Hiei, however, he did not release the fire demon immediately. Instead, he gazed at him seriously for a moment, and then leaned down and kissed him lightly on the ward covering his jagan. The Koorime boy just stared at him when he pulled away and shrank the grass back to its normal size, large eyes with their small, red irises fixed unblinkingly on his face.

“I look forward to our next spar.” Kurama told him, a small, friendly smile on his lips.

Hiei continued to stare, and eventually Kurama was forced to turn away, unnerved by those crimson orbs burning into his green ones. He could still feel those eyes on his back as he walked away at a casual pace; felt them all the way out of the park. He wondered as he boarded a bus for home if he had made a huge mistake. Only time would tell, he reasoned, and left it at that.