I Cry On No One's Shoulder
by Arisa

Chapter Two: Fear the Future

After a few minutes, Shuuichi's crying turned to coughs, and then panting. Kurama pulled away from Shuuichi long enough to wet a towel for him to put to his eyes. "Now, why don’t we get you cleaned up, you are still bleeding, and I don’t think either Mother or Father would like to see you, and myself, like this." Shuuichi coughed and took deep breaths of air while he nodded.

Kurama's face was pained when he examined all of the cuts, each one was seemingly worse from the last. The jagged glass in his hands was deep, as were the pieces of glass that penetrated through his blue pants on the backside of his legs. "How in the world did you do this?" Kurama asked softly with his back turned, walking to the last cabinet door that was underneath the countertop to get the first aid kit.

Shuuichi swallowed hard, ‘If I tell him the truth, it is no question he will tell Mother and Father… And then they will be hovering over me, watching my every move. Shuuichi would probably do the same…’ Shuuichi looked over at his stepbrother who was kneeling on the floor, moving various bottles of cleaning chemicals so he could grab the white box. Shuuichi finally answered, "I am just scared."

Kurama glanced over his shoulder as he closed the door. "Scared of what?"

‘Myself,’ Shuuichi thought, but did not voice his thought out loud, but instead, quickly formulated a answer that was partly true at the moment, "Of what is going to happen. I don’t like feeling tired all the time."

Kurama walked over to his brother and picked up one of his hands to look how the glass was positioned in his hand, "Then you should have quit smoking. Don’t you remember that you have some of fathers’ genes in you? His grandfather died a year after he started smoking. This is going to hurt a little, but probably not as bad as when they punctured your skin."

"Will I need stitches?" Shuuichi asked drowsily after Kurama had laid the tweezers that he had used to get the smaller pieces of jagged pieces of glass out of his stepbrother's hands, arms, and legs.

"Butterfly stitches should be good enough, the strips have to be around here somewhere…" Kurama mumbled as he rummaged around in the seemingly endless white box. Shiori always said ‘better be safe then sorry in the long run’.

Shuuichi nodded as he yawned, he was almost falling asleep on the counter, but he could not because of the bright light that was penetrating his eyelids. He looked up at the track lights, wishing that they would just go away.

"Can you please try to stay awake for me?" Kurama asked. "I need to know when something hurts."

Shuuichi nodded once as his eyes followed Kuramas movements as he lifted a brown bottle labeled ‘peroxide’, cotton swabs, and many other things that your typical emergency room would hold. Shuuichi asked between worn out yawns, "I never knew Mother had all of those things."

"She had this first aid kit for a long time, I believe ever since I learned how to crawl." Kurama disguised a small smile, and went to work on all the large wounds.

Shiori's heels clicked quietly on the concrete path that evidently led up to the four stairs, and then up to the door. She placed a strand of hair back behind her ear that got moved due to the wind's playfulness. Shiori's eyes looked around the yard, at all the puddles that had developed from the prolonged rain.

She moved two brown bags under her left arm as she rummaged in her purse to find her set of keys. After a few seconds of frustration, her fingers felt one jagged edge, and she lifted the set of keys out, sighing in relief. She continued to walk up to the front door, humming a small tune to her self.

"I am back, boys!" Shiori yelled in a singsong voice.

Shuuichi moaned, from being shaken from his short slumber. "Wha…?"

"Mother is home," Kurama said quietly. "Can you please try to straighten out your left arm for me?"

"But it hurts…" Shuuichi said as he was on the verge of going back to sleep.

"Can you try for me?" Kurama asked, with his eyes pained of hearing the evidence of the intense pain his stepbrother was going through. His head turned as he heard fast clicking of heels on the tile floor.

"What happened?!!?" Shiori gasped as she almost slid to a halt in front of Kurama and Shuuichi. "Shuuichi, what happened to your brother?! Are both of you okay?!"

"Please watch out for the broken glass on the floor. I have yet to clean that up. But, yes, I believe Shuuichi will be fine. It seems he dropped a glass when he tripped. I already took all the glass out," Kurama stated gravely. "I put butterfly stitches in his arms and legs, and I still have yet to wrap his legs in gauze."

Shiori was pale as she inspected how badly hurt her son was. The butterfly stitches underneath Shuuichi's ripped open pant legs, had blood staining them, but the bleeding seemed to cease. "How… How long ago did this happen?" She managed to whisper as her eyes were brimming with tears.

"I found him here about thirty to forty minuets ago," Kurama answered as he started to wrap his brothers left arm.

"Shuuichi! You are cut on your feet! Please sit down, you are bleeding!" Shiori commanded, composing herself.

About an hour, Shiori was content with her work and commanded in her sweet and gentle voice both boys to go to bed early. But Shuuichi was already asleep on the counter, so Shiori carried him to bed while Kurama limped sullenly behind her because of his over gauzed wrapped foot. All he would tell he needed was 3 Band-Aids; his mother stated, ‘best to be safe then sorry.’

Shuuichi pulled his blue comforter over his shoulders, and straightened out his sheet that was underneath the comforter.

"Shuuichi!!!!" Shuuichi yelled (A/N: That kind of sounds… weird… eh?) from his bed. He just woken up about thirty minuets ago, and could not go back to sleep, even though he was tired. Shuuichi had been tossing and turning for minutes, with his covers getting twisted every imaginable way.

A couple of rooms down the hall, Kurama looked up from his book that he was reading in bed, marked the page with the local library's white bookmark, pushed back the green blanket that was laying across his legs and got out of his bed and picked up a pile of what gauze that used to be on his foot, and carried it with him. He walked down the dimly lighted hallway, his feet going cold from the coolness of the wooden flooring. He discarded the gauze in a trashcan in the bathroom next to his stepbrother's room, and then knocked on the door that was emitting light from the gap that was between the bottom of the door and the floor.

"Shuuichi!" His brother said joyously when he saw Kurama.

"I see you are feeling better," Kurama commented. "Did you have a nightmare?" He asked as he tugged down his white long sleeve annoyingly, because it kept on creeping up his arm.

Shuuichi looked down sadly. "Yes, and you were in it."

"What happened?" Kurama asked as he stepped over a shirt and other items that were scattered on the wooden flooring.

"You… You were badly hurt, I don’t really remember how… It was just so real…" Shuuichi looked up at his stepbrother's compassionate face, allowing one tear to streak down his face.

‘Wouldn’t you love to see some parts of my life…’ Kurama thought rather grimly, "Is there anything I can do to make you feel better?" He asked.

Shuuichi's face brightened up instantly, as if he was planning the whole scene. "Can you tell me that story you used to always tell me when I was sick? The one with the fox and the poor hunter?"

"I think I saw that coming…" Kurama said slyly. "Why don’t you tell it to me for once? You memorized it."

"But… But… I am the one who is sick! Yes, you don’t have to tell me, I caused my illness on my own. But, you tell the story as if… Well, I don’t know how to say it, but as if you were there!"

Kurama tried not to show apprehension from his brother's comment, but he could not cover the startled look in his eyes. "Well, um… I guess I could tell you the story over again." He said and walked over to his brother's desk, pulled out the wooden chair and placed it by his brothers’ bed, and started his tale.

"One day, in another word that is close to ours," Kurama started, "lived a very selfish and haughty silver kitsune…"

Out in the night, the leaves were being stirred by a cool night wind, as their branches were being bended by the night creatures jumping from one branch to another.

A red eye opened as a brown leaf landed on his nose. He plucked it off and let the wind take it away as he looked at a house, to see if a light was turned off yet. To his disappointment, it was not. He sighed dejectedly and climbed up branches to see what was taking his friend so long.

Kurama's head turned to look out the window as he carried on with the story. "The fox finally took a fall off the mountain he was atop of…" He could hear someone chuckling outside of the window.

"What is wrong, Shuuichi?" Shuuichi cut in.

"Oh, nothing. I believe it's just an animal I heard," Kurama lied, looking back at his stepbrother. "As I was saying…"

"Why don’t you just come in?" Kurama announced as he turned a page in his book. He had gone back to his room after his brother feel asleep like a child would have done in a TV show, right in the middle of the story.

"So, I am an animal?" Hiei asked as he lifted the screen off of the open window, and pushed aside the white curtains as he placed the screen on the floor.

"What else would have convinced him?"

"Hn."

"What brings you here?" Kurama asked as he closed his book and laid it down beside him.

"There is a large rally in Makai, Koenma-sama wonders if you can come with us, or would you rather stay here with your brother?" Hiei stated as he sat on the window ledge.

"I am sorry, but I will have to opt out of this one, I can tell that something is going to happen, and I want to be around to help in any way I can."

"I will tell him. Also, your brother…"

Kurama held up his hand to silence Hiei. "I know what you are going to say. I am aware of this."

Hiei bowed his head with his eyes closed. "You have all our best wishes."

"Thank you. Good luck."

Hiei nodded and jumped out of the window and into the silky darkness.

Kurama sighed, his eyes distant, still staring at the place where his best friend had been just standing.

After a few seconds passed by, Kurama shook his head to clear his thoughts. He got out of bed, opened his door and walked out into the hall to his parents' room to make sure they were still sleeping.

Kurama opened their door, and looked at the king-sized bed that was illuminated by the flickering light of the TV that was on his stepfathers’ dresser on the opposite side of the room. Luckily, both of his parents were sleeping peacefully.

After checking on his sleeping stepbrother, he walked back into his room, and jumped out of his window, onto a branch that yielded under his weight.

Kurama walked on the thick branch of the oak tree till he got to the trunk of the massive tree. He sat down, leaning on the rough trunk as he looked past the branches to the moon that was casting pure and loving light down to the earth.

‘When does the last line break?’ Kurama thought as rays of moonlight penetrated his eyelids as he fell into a light sleep, wrapped in the nurturing light of the moon, held by the tree, and kissed goodnight by the wind.