Yu Yu Hakusho and its characters belong to Yoshihiro Togashi, Shueisha, Studio Pierrot, Fuji TV and Jump Comics. Takamura-san belongs to me, but he can be borrowed.
Shounen Ai, Lemon.
~*~
Chapter One
Stumbling Down
"Yusuke! Did you get table six's satsumajiru? They've been waiting for half an hour."
Comfortably leaning on the counter, Urameshi paused in his chat with the most faithful customer of the restaurant to look up at his fiancée in surprise. "Is it ready yet?"
"How should I know?" Keiko snapped back. "I have the other tables to attend. And I know which orders of my tables are ready and which aren't, and when the ones that aren't are due to be ready."
"Well maybe you like a dull predictable life," he countered. "But that doesn't mean everyone is like you. I find it exciting not to know what's happening, what's gonna happen or when it's gonna happen. It adds spice to life."
Keiko froze openmouthed, clearly wondering if it would be too improper to whack his head in front of the customers. "Yusuke," she managed at last, her tone a sibilant menace. "I don't think those people in table six are all that excited about whether or not their food will eventually arrive."
Yusuke smiled triumphantly. "So they're your kind of people. You should serve them."
She visibly didn't appreciate his cleverness. "Yusssssuke..." she threatened.
Oh-oh, the serpent's hiss, he thought. Time to withdraw. "Okay, okay, I'll go see."
In fact table six's order had been ready to serve for ten minutes. Yusuke muttered to himself that he still preferred the restaurant before the reform. It was so more practical to have the cooking done just behind the counter. But Keiko's father insisted that sophisticated restaurants wouldn't allow the customers to be exposed to the frying vapors, so the kitchen had been moved to the back room and a bar was installed in its original place.
After delivering the late order and murmuring some not very heartfelt apologies, Yusuke went back to lean on the counter and resume the conversation Keiko had interrupted.
"I'm afraid I'm distracting you, Yusuke," the redhead customer commented.
"Nah," Urameshi shrugged it off. "If you weren't here I'd be looking for something else to distract me. So, you were telling me about your stepbrother's new girlfriend."
Kurama smiled. "Oh, he says she's not a girlfriend. Just a, quote, very affectionate friend, unquote."
"Means he didn't kiss her yet," Yusuke translated.
"That's my guess too," agreed the other.
"Hard to think I was ever that age..."
Kurama joined his hands under the chin, elbows on the counter. "I knew you when you were his age. I seem to remember this boisterous kid lifting Keiko-chan's skirt and being knocked senseless at the next second."
"She still does that..." Yusuke murmured.
"... since you're still a boisterous kid," Kurama sniggered.
"Better than being a tedious executive," Urameshi suggested.
His friend reacted instantly. "I'm not tedious!"
"And who says I was talking about you?" It's been a jolly day so far. For some reason everyone was falling for his dirty tricks. And it was especially nice to beat foxy Kurama in a word game.
The redhead grimaced, conceding the small victory. "If I'm boring you maybe you should look for another distraction, Yusuke."
"You're not boring me," averred Urameshi. "But you're beginning to worry me."
Red eyebrows arched notably. "Why? I'm fine. And happy."
Yusuke rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, you're fine. You're happy. That's what you've been telling me every single day for the last four months. Mama's happy with new husband, new Papa is a nice fellow, stepbrother is a good kid, college is great, job in new Papa's company is fantastic... It worries me that you might think I'm buying all that. Am I that low in your concept?"
Kurama kept staring at him for a long moment, until those eyebrows fell back over darkened eyes. "I am happy, Yusuke," he insisted. "Maybe not all the time, but I am."
So you wanna play... "Then when are you not all that happy?"
The Youko fell into deep silence, green eyes locked sadly in his empty dish on the counter. Yusuke was wondering if he was trying to win by wearing his patience when he finally spoke. "You took long to return home."
That wasn't the answer he had expected. "Well, Raizen told me it would be a good thing to travel, you know. Get to see more of the Makai. It's so huge, it'd take a thousand years just to cross the first levels."
"A million years is more like it," Kurama corrected him. "But you didn't stay nearly that long."
"I promised Keiko I'd be back in three years."
"What if you hadn't made that promise?"
Urameshi eyed him curiously, trying to get a hint of the Youko's thoughts from his expressionless visage. "Keiko would still have been here," he whispered. That was not the kind of thing he wanted her to eavesdrop. "It wouldn't make any difference."
Kurama assented. "So you're staying."
Yusuke shrugged. He didn't like to make long-term plans. "For the time being, yeah."
A lopsided smile crossed the redhead's lips. "But you want to continue your travel someday."
The foxy boy had regained the reins of the game. "Yes."
"But for the time being you're fine here, home with Mama, beautiful fiancée, nice future parents-in-law, working at this cozy restaurant." Kurama concluded, "And you're happy."
Yusuke bit his lips not to laugh. The Youko was a mighty adversary. "Touché," he conceded.
His friend winked playfully. "And you thought you could beat me. You think so little of me?"
He could not hold the giggling anymore. "Never. No one can twist an argument like you."
"Thanks."
And with that, they concluded their challenge with a loud contented laugh, and for once Kurama didn't try to suppress it with a censoring hand. Curious and carping stares fell over them from every corner of the restaurant, and that only doubled their laughter. The complicity felt good, alleviating. Like two compatriots meeting in foreign country. A jolly day indeed.
"Hey, you know what we should do?" asked Urameshi. "We get Kuwabara and go to Makai for the weekend, to find some butts to kick. You know, to keep practice."
"I thought the weekends were the busiest days to you," Kurama replied.
"They are," Keiko asserted from over Kurama's right shoulder. The redhead winced. He must be really out of practice to let Keiko-chan to sneak on him like that.
"No funny ideas, Urameshi," she continued. "You're not letting my parents down to look for trouble just to amuse yourself. Will you ever grow up?"
"For your information, I have a vast territory in Makai to see to," Yusuke retorted. "And Hokushin has been asking me to go there and help him with some administrative issues."
"Then the best way to help this Hokushin of yours is staying faaaaar away from there, where you can't blow up those administrative issues to ashes," she snorted.
"I can't think of a place that far away," Kurama murmured to himself. "Pluto, perhaps?"
Yusuke glared at his friend's sarcasm. Now where's my accomplice of two minutes ago? Traitor. "It's only for the weekend," he told Keiko. "Your parents kept this place running fine before the two of us were even born. You can manage without me for a weekend."
Keiko crossed her arms over her chest, her eyes narrowed to glinting slits. "I managed without you quite well for three years. Maybe I should get used to it."
Yusuke froze. She's not serious, is she? He gazed at Kurama, who wisely cast down his eyes and tried to be as inconspicuous as possible. She is serious, Urameshi muttered to himself. "Oh, c'mon, Keiko! It's just one weekend. I promise."
Keiko sighed. Yusuke had never broken a promise to her. But he sure knew how to extend the limits of his word as far as possible...
"You could come with us," he suggested.
Kurama eyed him curiously, but he didn't say a word. I know, Kurama, Yusuke thought. Makai is still a dangerous place, and Keiko can't defend herself from the demons, but I can protect her!
"Come with you?!" Keiko gaped. "To the Demon World? Are you out of your mind?"
"With Kurama and Kuwabara and me, you would be completely safe," Urameshi insisted. "Come on, I'm sure you'll love the place."
Kurama's gaze became even more curious. Are we talking about the same place? he wondered. Or the same Keiko? But the redhead still kept his silence.
"Aren't you curious to know how the Demon World is like?" Urameshi insisted. "Kurama's home world? My ancestors' birthplace?"
Homeworld... Kurama gazed thoughtfully at his entwined fingers, feeling the old pull at opposite directions clamping his heart. He was fine and happy in Ningenkai. Not all the time, but for long enough. Right?
"Sure I'm curious," Keiko conceded. "But I'm curious about a lot of things and places I really don't wanna get to know in person, Yusuke."
Kurama grinned. That was a concept he doubted Yusuke would ever grasp. For the boy, curiosity automatically meant "let's go there and take a look". What, the deep core of Death Canyon in seventh Hell? Let's take a peek, shall we? That was Yusuke Urameshi's way of copying with the unknown and the mysterious.
Keiko finally held her hands up, too tired to pursue the ungrateful task of injecting common sense into her fiancé's brick head. "All right, I give up. You can go. But you better be here to open the restaurant Monday morning as soon as the sun rises, or not even an army of angry demons will save you from me, you hear me?"
Yusuke's broad smile seemed large enough to draw a light beam through the whole room. He embraced her and kissed her noisily on the cheek, laughing his thanks.
"Cut it out, baka," she complained, failing to sound as annoyed as she intended. "We're working here. What are the customers going to think?"
"Hah," Yusuke chortled. "They'll probably come back tomorrow to pry on us again..." Such a jolly day. "Pack your stuff, Kurama. I'll call Kuwabara. We leave Friday night, as soon as the restaurant closes."
Kurama shook his head firmly. "Wait, wait!" he cautioned. "I never said anything about going."
Urameshi huffed. Clearly the Youko wouldn't give in without some sweet-talking...
"Kurama-kun, please," Keiko interceded. "I would feel much more comfortable if you went along. Who knows in what kind of trouble Yusuke and Kuwabara might get into if you're not there."
Speaking of sweet-talking... Yusuke bit his lip to muffle his giggle. "Kurama, come on... You're just crazy to go, you just admitted it a few minutes ago."
The redhead frowned. "I don't remember admitting anything of the sort."
Just because you didn't actually say the words doesn't mean I couldn't hear you, Yusuke grumbled mutely. "Quit the game, Kurama," he said instead. "You'd probably beat me again, and you really don't wanna win this one."
The two friends stared at each other for a long moment, as fighters just before a combat, measuring the adversary's strengths and weaknesses. The Youko seemed to dare Urameshi to read his thoughts.
Which Yusuke easily - but probably unwittingly - did. "It will be just like old times," he promised. "We can stop by Mukuro's and fetch Hiei. The Urameshi Team back to action."
Hiei. The one name Kurama didn't want to think of. "I don't know, Yusuke. He'll probably be busy patrolling or doing whatever it is he does there. And Mukuro might be not all that happy in seeing you. You're sort of a rival after all."
Yusuke shrugged. "She treated me well enough last time I've been there."
Kurama startled. "You've been there? When?" I'm not anxious, he firmly told himself. Just curious. Still and all, Hiei was a good friend.
"Just before coming back to Ningenkai. I thought it would be nice to check on him one last time, see if he was okay and if he was still sure about staying there."
The Youko felt a bitter lump forming in the back of his throat. "And he was."
Yusuke smiled. "You bet he was. He seemed to be having the time of his life there." At the quizzical looks Kurama and Keiko shot at him, he amended. "Well, I mean Hiei-style fun. Just scowling a lot less than usual. And talking. You know what I mean."
Hiei, talking? Kurama braced himself. To Yusuke? Before he would only talk to me...
Keiko shook her head. "I still don't get how Hiei could be working for an enemy of yours, Yusuke. And you don't seem to care at all."
Yusuke sighed. It was hard for him to explain stuff he understood so clearly without words. He sensed the whole situation and life as sparking moving visions and a bunch of feelings and insights he had no control over. Fortunately, his teammates apparently shared that ability or peculiarity, which allowed him to keep their pace so perfectly tuned, time after time. But he had never found a way to properly translate any of that to his fiancée.
"Mukuro is not an enemy," he tried. Then, shifting his gaze to Kurama, "Or a rival. I don't think she see things this way. Things are changed." Yusuke trailed off, at a loss. He dimly remembered an old school assignment, writing a thirty-line composition describing an elephant. He had stared at the blank paper for quite some time, unable to find a place to start, the only word coming to his mind being BIG, BIG, BIG... That kind of thing was clearly out of his league.
He stared at Kurama yet, silently asking for help.
"Mukuro played her own game, for what? A thousand years?" Kurama argued, for once too involved in his thoughts to attend his friend's mute plea. "Old dogs can be really slow learning new tricks."
"Quite a weird thing for you to say, Fox," Yusuke grimaced. The Youko that in fifteen years learned how to become human...
Kurama stiffed suddenly, eyes widened wild, as if slapped in the face.
Yusuke winced. What did I say? "Sorry. Didn't mean to..."
The redhead cut him with a wave of his hand, forcing himself to relax. "I know. Forget it. You didn't offend me at all."
"Okay," Urameshi murmured, still unsure.
It was true, though; he had not insulted the Youko with his comment. But he had brought up innumerous undesirable memories in Kurama's heart, by employing the old nickname Hiei used to call him. Unpleasant echoes of a soft panting deep voice being whispered in his ear, blowing the thinnest red hairs against his neck, together with reminiscences of hot, wet, breathless and very pleasant moments of only a few years ago...
"You two know that I have no idea of what you're talking about?" Keiko broke in, confused and impatient.
This time Yusuke was hardly at a better position, so all he could do was gaze down helplessly at the girl.
Hormones, Kurama grunted to himself. Their loud voice screamed in his mind, demanding more attention than intellectual acknowledgement and long past memories could offer. They were one of the most unfine and unhappy elements of his present life in Ningenkai. Even if he wasn't a fifteen year-old kid anymore, he was still critically far of quenching the stormy fire shooting through his veins, or taming the ancient Youko physiological instincts. Maybe it was time to break his self-inflicted abstinence after all. However, Kurama didn't feel much comfortable with the idea. Since he had merged in Shuuichi Minamino's humanity, attending to his hormones' ultimatums had caused him more trouble than he cared about. Seducing his best friend, and then that weird... situation... with Yomi, those were hardly the smartest things he had done in his life...
But if he was going to do something about it, the Ningenkai wasn't the place for him to be then. It had been too complicated with Hiei already. Dragging a human to his bed would be far worse. "Okay, Yusuke," he sighed. "I'll go with you."
"Really?" Yusuke delighted.
Keiko held the Youko's hands and kissed him on the cheek. "Thank you so much, Kurama-kun."
"My pleasure, Keiko-chan," he replied, hoping the double meaning wouldn't sound too evident. He would have to find a way to get clear of Yusuke and Kuwabara for a few hours, preferably half a day, to find a target and carry out his plans. It would be easier if he could convince Hiei to join him in a little private celebration of the old times, but the way the two of them had parted ways after the Makai Tournament sorely dashed his hopes. He just begged Inari that the Fire Demon didn't keep hard feelings and treated him civilly in front of the others. Their friends knew nothing about their... altercation, and Kurama had no desire to explain it.
"Hey!" Yusuke exclaimed, pointing at the large window facing the street. "It's Kuwabara."
In fact, the tall carrot-haired boy was passing by the restaurant at that precise moment, hands shoved in his pockets, shoulders slightly curved forward, in a slow, reflective pace.
"The asshole," Urameshi groaned. "He doesn't even stop to say hi... Oi Kuwabara!!!!" he shouted, running to the window and waving his arms to call his friend's attention. "KUWABARA!!! In here, you big idiot!!!"
Kuwabara eventually heard him and turned to see him waving frantically through the glass. But not before all the customers and also a bunch of people in the street had thrown Yusuke heavy glares that went from annoyance to barely disguised derision. "Come to think of it," Keiko moaned, "why don't you guys just leave right now? Before my family's restaurant becomes the scorn of the neighborhood?"
Kurama was about to crack a mocking comment at the spent of Yusuke's discretion abilities, when he noticed Kuwabara's melancholic expression. The young human had never been in the habit of gloomy moods, and that alone was a clear sign of trouble.
Yusuke noticed it too, and ran to open the door for Kuwabara, who came in with those same slow somber steps, staring blankly ahead. "Hi, Urameshi," he greeted in a disheartened murmur. "Kurama. Yukimura."
"How are you, Kuwabara-kun?" Keiko replied. "You seem a little sad today."
Now that's an understatement, thought Yusuke. "Yeah, last time I saw you like this Yukina had left for the Ice World. What happened?"
"Is she alright?" Keiko asked.
It took a few seconds to Kuwabara focus on the girl's face. "Huh? Oh, Yukina-san. She's fine. I think. Saw her yesterday." He trailed off, a sudden frown distorting his features. "Maybe I should go see her again."
"Is there something wrong?" Kurama asked softly, coming closer to the two boys next to the door.
Kazuma sighed heavily. "Yes. I think so. Something very wrong."
Keiko startled. Please, don't, she pleaded to all deities she could think of. Not now, when things are finally falling to their places... She looked around the room, quickly evaluating the number of customers, and risked the decision that she and Yusuke could be spared for a few minutes. "Here, Kuwabara-kun, take a sit," she guided him to the table right behind the door. "You want something, a cup of coffee?"
"No, thanks, Yukimura," he shook his head. "I don't think my stomach can handle it."
The four sat around the table, and the thick dreary silence seemed tangible enough to be a fifth person sitting at the upper end. "Spit it out, man," Yusuke encouraged him.
Kuwabara gave no sign of having heard him, rubbing a nail against the yellow tablecloth. At the booth across from him, Kurama and Urameshi exchanged worried glances.
"Kurama," Kazuma said at last, his voice unusually quiet. "Do you remember when Urameshi was kidnapped and we went to rescue him at the Yojigen Mansion?"
"Of course," the redhead nodded.
"That creepy place is hard to forget, Yusuke murmured. And his humiliating defeat to Kido's territory was definitely not one of his most cherished memories.
But Kuwabara kept his gaze fixed on Kurama, the lines in his face hardening in strain. "If you hadn't beaten Kaitou... what would have happened?"
Kurama blinked. "I don't understand."
Kazuma huffed, visibly impatient for an answer. "Botan, me... and Hiei... Kaitou took our spirits out of our bodies and kept us prisoners of his territory. If you hadn't defeated him in that word game..."
Kurama smiled modestly, waving that kind of thought away. "That was so long ago, Kuwabara-kun. And Genkai-shihan was there and would never allow any harm upon you, or any of us. You owe me nothing."
With unexpected urgency, Kazuma held the Youko's arm. "What would have happened, Kurama? If our spirits weren't returned to our bodies when they were?"
The redhead had no lead on why the boy seemed so anxious about that long past issue. Exchanging another round of quick glances with Yusuke, he was assured he wasn't the only clueless one there.
Cautiously, he answered the question, considering it at face value. "The body can't live long if its link to the spirit is broken. You might have died. Just as Kaitou would, if Genkai didn't put him back together when he lost the game."
If Kurama expected a reaction, he got none. Kazuma kept that tense frightened stare on him, the grasp in his arm almost painfully frantic.
"But you know this already," the Youko accused. Of course Kuwabara knew that; he certainly understood the subtleties of the connection between matter and soul far better than anyone at that table. When Kurama told his friends how he had come to inhabit a human body, it was Kuwabara who made all the technical explaining of how such a thing could happen, clearing some details that were blurry to Kurama himself. So why did he ask? Kurama wondered. And why is he suddenly so depressed about it?
"How long?" Kuwabara inquired, his tone no more than a feeble coarse whisper.
Unintentionally, the tall boy was projecting his own dread feelings upon Kurama's mind, the grip of his hand working as an empathic anchor and channel. The redhead felt his body shaken by a severe shudder as the depth of the fear and urgency emitted by that question reached his heart, and for a moment he couldn't find his voice.
"How long what?" Yusuke demanded, disturbed by his friends' grim faces.
Kazuma gulped, and his voice came out a little clearer and calmer. "How long can a body survive apart of the soul?"
Kurama braced himself for whatever it was coming his way. Another question for which Kuwabara obviously knew the answer himself. "Twenty hours or so. Certainly no more than one day."
Kazuma loosed Kurama's arm with a grievous sigh, and the Youko, suddenly freed of the empathic chain, blinked away the stings of upcoming tears, his mind again dominated by his own confusion. For all Inari's tails, what's going on here? He could only recall one single moment in the past when he had seen Kuwabara in tears. Years ago, when the two of them plus Hiei were stuck inside Itsuki's void-creature, forced to watch helplessly while Sensui killed Yusuke...
Keiko held Kuwabara's arm, afflicted by her tall strong friend's defeated expression. "Kuwabara, tell us, please," she murmured softly. "What's troubling you?"
His eyes darkened and downcast, Kuwabara breathed in deeply. "Guys... I think... I think Hiei is dead."
It was one of those moments that Kurama expected the world to be suddenly enfolded by a deep long silence, as if the words were able to shock the universe into numbness. If life were like the movies, it sure would have happened. But then, it didn't. All the customers were still talking happily around them, the frying sounds still came from the kitchen, the cars still roared in the street, and with a little effort he could even hear the birds singing in the backyard. And that somehow made things even worse.
"Wha-what do you mean, dead?" Yusuke sputtered. He forced out a short unbelieving laugh. "You're joking, right?"
Kuwabara shook his head, his eyes closing against the new reality his words had created.
"But how?" Keiko choked. "How? When? Where?" And after a moment, "Who?"
Flashes of the Ankoku Bujutsukai and Hiei's flaming powers popped in her mind. Demons didn't die of age or casualty. And if someone was able to bring down someone like Hiei...
"I don't know," Kuwabara soughed.
"What you mean, you don't know?" Yusuke shouted. "What do you know? You just said..." He trailed off, unable to repeat the words.
"I said I think he is dead," Kazuma shouted back. "I don't know what happened. All I know is that Hiei's soul is missing."
"Missing?" Keiko echoed.
"Missing. Gone stray. Drifted somewhere and the ferrygirls can't find him." Kuwabara delved his fingers in his orange hair, disarraying the impeccable gelled forelock. "That's all I know. All I think I know."
"I see," said Kurama, his voice icy and distant. "That's why you mentioned Kaitou."
"What?" Yusuke turned wide eyes to the redhead, who gazed calmly at nothing, seeming completely untouched by Kuwabara's news.
The Youko shifted to look at Yusuke with a sort of professorial expression. "There are two ways a soul can go stray. One, when the body dies and for some reason the soul fails to reach the Reikai. Two, when the soul is extracted from the body and is unable to find its way back before the body dies." He looked back at Kuwabara. "You seem to think that Hiei's soul is missing for some time already. And that means, however it was that the separation took place, that by now Hiei is irremediably dead." He smiled, proud of his own reasoning. "Pure logic."
The cold insensitive speech sounded so surreal in Yusuke's ears he became sure that he could only be dreaming. "This is a joke," he affirmed. "You see, Kuwabara, you didn't fool Kurama for a bit. He knows Hiei is not dead." That was the only possible explanation for the Youko's total lack of any emotional reaction.
Kuwabara raised tearstained eyes. "Urameshi..."
"Actually," Kurama interrupted him, "I think it's quite possible. Dying like that, it would be just like him."
"Kurama-kun!" Keiko was shocked. "He was your best friend!"
"Was?!" Yusuke stood up in fury. "Is!!! Hiei is! Enough of this, you two," he stabbed an accusing finger at his teammates' direction. "This is too sick to be funny."
"Urameshi, I am serious," Kazuma claimed. "I met Botan just now, and she told me that..."
"SHUT UP!" Yusuke barked, turning on his heels and running through the restaurant's door.
Many customers startled either at the shout or at the banging of the door, but for once Keiko felt no inclination to sooth them, running after her fiancé instead. "Yusuke, wait!"
Kurama didn't move, didn't even flinch. Kuwabara stared at him in a mix of regret and concern. "Kurama... I am serious," he repeated.
The redhead nodded. "I believe you."
"And don't you care?"
Kurama arched an eyebrow, picturing himself tentatively touching the walls of his heart, trying blindly to feel and identify the emotions coiling around its surface. Cold, smooth, slightly wet, burning his fingertips.
Ice.
"No," he admitted, a curious edge
in his tone. "Right now, for some reason, I don't."
~*~
"Yusuke, wait!"
The urgent cries followed him across the street like a flying shadow, and his legs suddenly felt too heavy to keep him running at his usual speed.
Speed. Running. Flying shadow. No.
Botan. Botan said. The ferrygirl said. The Goddess of Death said.
Amazingly tired after crossing no more than thirty meters, Yusuke stopped.
"Yusuke..." A breathless Keiko grasped his arms and took him in a furious hug. "Yusuke... I'm so sorry..."
The day was too bright. Too noisy. Too sunny. The least the universe could do was quiet down and bring some rain when a friend dies.
A jolly day.
"He's not dead," Yusuke told her. "He's not."
"But Kuwabara-kun said..."
"He's wrong."
"He said Botan told him..."
"And since when Botan became a trustworthy source of information? That girl is an airhead!"
Keiko knew he didn't mean that and repented it already as soon as the last word came out. "Yusuke, calm down... I know it's hard..."
He shook his head firmly. "Hiei is not dead, Keiko."
She studied him thoughtfully. There was a lot about Yusuke and his companions that she didn't understand. Could that stubborn denial be one of those things? "How do you know?"
"Because..." Yusuke closed his eyes, begging all gods for an answer. "Because Kurama is wrong. Hiei wouldn't die like that."
"Yusuke..."
"Look, don't ask me, okay?" He held her shoulders, looking straight in her eyes. "I don't have an answer for that. I don't even have Kuwabara's psychic powers. But I know what I'm saying."
Keiko stared up at him, caressing his cheek to wipe the tear trails away. She nodded, silently vowing her trust in whatever it was that made him so sure of elusive things.
He smiled fondly, thankful, and held her tight. "We were just talking about him," he whispered. "We were going to visit him this weekend."
"Well," Keiko sighed, "it seems you
guys will have to leave sooner than you planned."
~*~
"Stupid! Stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid!"
"What did I do, angel?" Takamura-san asked, once more gulping the urge to puke at another of the oar's mad twisting maneuvers. Which should be easy, since he didn't even had a real stomach anymore.
"Not you, Takamura-san, me. Me, me, me!" the ferrygirl corrected, whacking her own head with every repetition. "Me and my big huge enormous mouth."
The old man released his left hand for a second, to pinch Botan's cheek playfully. "Oh angel, your little mouth looks very cute to me."
Botan led the oar to another loop, forcing him to brace himself with his two hands again. "The problem is not how it looks, but what it says," she groaned. "How could I be so careless? Koenma-sama specifically ordered me not to tell about Hiei to any of the boys."
"Oh..." Takamura-san nodded in understanding, but in fact not understanding a thing. "Did you tell?"
"Didn't you see?" Botan exclaimed. "I almost threw the whole story at Kuwabara-kun's feet."
"About Hiei?"
Botan halted the oar abruptly in midair, and Takamura-san was shoved against the girl's widened pink eyes. "What do you know about Hiei?" she breathed.
"Nothing!"
"Tell me the truth, Takamura-san!"
"I was told it's quite a beautiful sight," Takamura-san commented.
Botan's eyebrows arched considerably. Hiei, a beautiful sight?
"But I never saw it myself," he added.
"Who told you Hiei is a beautiful sight?" she inquired.
"Oh, lots of people," the old man assured her.
"Lots of people know Hiei?" she freaked.
"Sure."
"You mean lots of humans?"
The old man considered the question. "Well, probably lots of animals too..."
Botan blinked several times, half expecting, each time she reopened her eyes, to see that her traveling companion had turned into a green dromedary with fireman's hat and a clown's nose. "Takamura-san, what are you talking about?" she managed at last.
He faced her earnestly, fists on his hips. "You know what, angel? I have no idea."
"But you said..."
"I never went there, angel," he reminded her. "You know, it's the kind of place I intended to take a wife for a honeymoon. But you see, all my life I never found the one special girl I wanted to invite for Kyoto." He smiled seductively. "Say, angel, why don't we skip this Reikai thing and make this tiny change of course? Just imagine, the two of us, the night breeze, the moonlight sparkling reflexes on the mountain's side, the song of the crickets while we cross the skies on your oar..." He looked down for a second, glimpsing through the clouds the earth so far below. "Or maybe we should skip the oar part too."
Botan grimaced. Kyoto. Hiei-yama. The mountain. Of course.
"Stupid!" she grunted, knocking a heavy fist on her head once more. "Aaaaaaarrrgh!!! Stupid! Stuuuupid!!!!"
Takamura-san winced. He would have tried to stop her self-punishment, but the oar was answering sympathetically to her anger, shaking and twisting and jumping and quivering, and he felt his hands were quite fine where they were, holding the wood for dear life... or dear death? Hmm....
"Don't hurt yourself, angel," he soothed her. "No one so pretty deserve that..."
Botan bit her lip hard. Takamura-san could be as gallant as a fairy tale prince; it wouldn't diminish the size of her blunder or Koenma's fury when he found out. She hadn't said much, but she had said precisely the wrong thing. And if Kuwabara-kun tells the others what I said, they might fall to very wrong conclusions. And Enma-sama protect us of the mess if they do...
Botan shivered at her own thoughts.
On a second thought, let's leave Enma-sama out of this...
~*~
June 28th, 2000