"You never give yourself a break from that, do you? After what you just told her five nights ago ---"

"I forgot you were assigned to the AVR that night. And her case was different --- it was something out of her control." He sighed. "It was my fault."

"So long ago, way before Eros, a boy like him was what I had in mind. So long ago."

I regret not tying my hair into a ponytail or braid.

Earlier today, at dawn, I let my hair down and appreciated it before the mirror, the way I knew Hiei would appreciate it if he weren't blind. It was still an odd cocktail of dark brown and blond locks, still curly --- though if anyone would dare give me a buzz cut and survive my wrath, you'd see that it was natural, for I am a cheetah and proud of it! --- but no longer lusterless and frizzy. I owe that, and much more, to Sigma.

But I'm getting a bit off topic there, though that's still kind of related. Since I owe Sigma a lot of things, I have switched a day off with Phae to spy on a boy he loves. Hiei. (Like a son, okay? I'm not insinuating on what you might be thinking now.)

He's a boy I love too, you know. I must have devoted nearly all of my entries on your pages to him. But since you already have had enough of my doodling his name all over your pages, writing it in block letters, script, kanji, print, and of complaining of his near-constant catatonia and faraway look every time I try to talk to him, I decided that a little sleuthing would clear up more of those mystery fogs he wraps himself in than benzoyl peroxide could clear of pimples in a week.

Well, you already know who Sigma chose to go with me --- Maryam, that stuck-up little Koorime, who else? You won't hear any gossip out of the lips of that girl, and with the way she acts around the rest of us --- she looks at us like she's the leader of a group of nuns suspecting her girls' virginity --- oh, gods, you'd think she's still in the Glacier. And why me, being talkative as I am? Because, as you already know, Sigma is just a double-decker away.

And we're partners for a day. I thought it would be a drag to be with that frigid thing for that long, but I actually surprised myself that we got along just fine. She masked her ki so well she almost wasn't there, and she was so fast she must had turned to wind, and I followed her lead, and her suggestions for an energy cover as efficient as hers.

But the one we followed was nowhere, he had become the wind. That gorgeous hurricane in jeans settled in front of this moss-veiled, knotty old bride of a tree, like he was its tardy half-dressed bride groom, and he sat for their private ritual of reading Mishima in the summer morning sun. They weren't expecting witnesses, obviously. He didn't notice that there are witnesses to their ritual.

Maryam said, "Good for us, but how stupid of him."

Anyway, his reading was interrupted by the arrival of... of...

... a silver-haired youko.

Shit, seeing this demon was almost surreal. Even Maryam was open-mouthed, Maryam, male-hater that she was. (I wonder if Pygmalion was into silver-haired youko? He must be; this must be a male youko version of Galatea.) It was even more otherworldly to see Hiei, Hiei, notorious for his bloodless professionalism and near-constant catatonia and faraway expression, to be openly, warmly, sincerely embracing this youko, engaging that tiny baby mouth in that viciously tender kiss, and consenting to be picked up and hoisted upon the youko's lap.

I've always known flames have fueled those coal-red eyes.

They sat there, the youko's back to the tree; Hiei's back on him as he resumed his reading. He was teasing the youko about a duel, and he just laughed and nuzzled his neck as he left the choice of day and place of the event to "H." They drank from Hiei's Thermos in deep, thirsty gulps, and the bottle was sweaty from their heat, as sweaty as they --- no, just the youko --- already were, no, was. It wasn't even midday yet. They haven't even done anything more than that kiss.

It was hot enough with the sun alone, you know? Maryam was especially pissed off. You should have seen her eyes then --- she must have wished then that she could burn those two alive with her burning-coal stare. She was muttering how weak Hiei had become, falling for "the worst scum from the dregs of the Makai. I'm disappointed with him; he had seemed so strong against that thief's charms."

Thief, she said? "Thief? You mean..."

She just nodded.

Oh gods. No. I've seen that sick video from that night. But I haven't seen the youko's face then. Ugh. Maryam, like me, had had enough of what she called "that saccharine shit from those two." We went back to camp and reported to Sigma.

He got back around sunset. You know, I didn't get to see him arrive from wherever he went on his days off, not until now.

And boy, I've never looked so hard at him like I did that afternoon. He was back to the notorious H427 everybody knows and fucks --- bloodlessly professional, almost constantly catatonic and with a faraway expression --- but how could I call bloodless the Hiei that returned to camp at sunset? The Hiei whose eyes have fireworks amongst its stars, whose skin was flushed and tanned from the heat of love and the sun, whose tiny baby lips just ripened with a viciously tender kiss?

Maybe two days after today the effect will wear off, and he will be claimed like a bride by everybody with the money to do so, but he knows whose bride he was, is and will be.

Gods, I wish I had tied up my hair. I wish I could straighten its curls and bleach it to platinum. I wish I could turn myself into that living statue of a youko. Maybe he'd see me for once. But he won't.