Adult-FanFiction.org : YuYu Hakusho

The Library of Alexandria	By : Artemick Category: Yuyu Hakusho > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 2604 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho or its characters and make nothing off this story.

Chapter List
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2)

The bells chimed out for the last time that day. Afternoon light cut sideways through the windows, and the students grabbed mops and brooms.

Kurama pushed his feet into his loafers. Kaito sat down at his elbow. Kurama murmured back to him, "Thank you for insisting that we attend. I’ve missed more days than I thought. Another absence would have been – “

“Nothing, I’m sure. Not for you. Don’t you have science club?”

Kurama smiled. “I direct myself more productively alone. There are several of us who use the facilities for personal projects.”

Kaito seemed to vacillate between several questions. “What projects?”

“Structural chemistry. I understand very little about the way the physical matter in this plane is put together.” Kurama hushed his voice until they were outside the large push doors in the bright afternoon sun. “Manipulating plants in the human realm requires stringent understanding. As an animal in the Makai – the place is liquid with energy flow. Here things resist.”

“Physical structure is dominant to the nature of the plants here, so they’re less malleable? Like carving wood, rather than bending metal.”

“Yes! That is an apt comparison. In the Makai, running energy into a thing melts it like heated gold.”

They took the steps, talking.

Kurama felt like he was flying – he was walking as fast as he often wanted to, but couldn’t because it looked inhuman. Kaito made Kurama’s abilities seem human – his intellect, his speech. Kaito kept up, with his bright mind and long legs.

Feeling encouraged, Kurama offered, “Demonic plants have different disposition.”

“They have character? That’s delightful! Most scientists are loath to assign sentience to non- or sub-humans.”

“With my heritage, I have no such fault."

“I always hated animal testing. It's obvious they feel pain, have dreams, desires, agency. I don't need it proved at that cost.”

Kurama shuddered, remembering everything he’d read. The research experiments uncovered by reporters and activists. They were proven in full horror on the Chapter Black tape, along with graphic trials that were never unearthed. Opened spinal columns, frozen and poisoned rats, primates driven psychotic.

“…anything discovered in the lab can be hypothesized in literature. Kurama? Did I upset you?”

Kurama knew what scientists would do with him. Dissection. Electric neural stimulation. Tissue sampling. Toxic exposure and injections, ending in the ultimate incineration of the sample. Tortured to death with their slow well-intended pitiless examination and then gassed, ashes blown out a smokestack.

“Hey.” Kaito dropped his hand on Kurama’s shoulder. “Are you alright?”

"Yes. No. There's nothing I can do about them. The tests."

Kurama gave up on walking. His classmate stood in front of him, acting like a breakwater to the crowd. After a moment, Kaito offered, “Here. Give me your phone. There’s a lot of legislation that only needs a show of public support to be stamped through. Why not text our rep? I'll do it for you. Can I sign your name?"

Kurama shivered, remembering his capture by the SDF. He nodded and watched Kaito type and hand the phone back. "Thanks."

"Done. Look at that, you saved a critter." Kaito opened his arms, grinning. “There. You did everything you could. Feel better?”

Kurama grinned. It was a stupid thing. But happy. “A little, I suppose. I didn't realize you…that society cared about that sort of thing. I've spent too long with biologists…and demon hunters."

“Yes, well, you're in school; a little activism never hurt anyone. And look. You spoke for someone who didn’t have a voice. Isn’t that good?” Kaito put his palm on Kurama’s sternum, rubbing heat into him. “Feel that in your heart.”

Kurama smiled up, sheepishly. He put his hand on Kaito's, feeling the pads of his hand through his jacket. Kaito was a bridge between intellectual and menial. Kurama loved that feeling, that union, being able to stand on that bridge and feel that balance. That caring.

"Come on." Kaito convinced him to move into the nearest café, where he bought a cup of plain coffee Kurama and a bagel for himself.

Kurama slid neatly into his seat, where he pressed his hand into his lap.

“Are you…very political?” Kurama tried to restart the discussion as a sane human would. His voice scratched the bottom of the barrel. He reached out and took Kaito's hand in his. The other young man grinned.

“Comes with being interested in language.” Kaito was glad to grandstand. “Studying different forms of communication, you realize how misunderstandings complicate choices.”

“Oh?” Their hands felt like anchors. Kaito's pulse came through his fingers and pulled at Kurama like a deep tide.

“Cultures with words to describe cognitive processes are better at game theory, at projecting others’ likely behaviors.Biology doesn’t deal with intentions. We've both seen whole presentations with no thought to animals’ speech or communication. Your field doesn’t give you exposure to the thought experiments and creative literature out there. There are excellent behavioralists.”

“Biology is closer to economics, in that we prefer to study proved action, rather than professed action. But I have to admit,” Kurama bowed his head in faux shame. “I haven’t read many behavioral studies.”

“I thought fox possession made one read prodigiously.” He brushed Kurama's fingers to his lips and let go, so that he could pick up his coffee.

“Traditionally. If the kitsune knows languages, or likes reading. I’m afraid I didn’t spend my fox years productively.” Kurama smirked.

“That’s right…you were a con artist or something.” Kaito opened his mouth, squinting. “My club read that kitsunes hoarded their treasures like western dragons.”

“I know nothing about dragons, though I assure you I’d be glad to learn about the treasure. What…what clubs are you in?”

Kaito laughed and pushed his chair onto its back legs, balancing. He templed his fingers, tapping his thumbs. “A historical world literature club, the modern short stories club, and the post-modern philosophy club.”

“I didn’t know we had those.”

“We don’t. A few teachers and I go to local universities and represent the school.”

“That must be entertaining. What do you read?”

Kaito made a gesture. “You wouldn’t be interested. I have better things to loan you, if you need bedtime reading. Escapism in literature can be calming.”

Kurama folded his hands around the warm ceramic mug. “Thank you for the coffee. And your kindness.”

Kaito tilted his head. He leaned out and drew his finger along Kurama’s. “Always glad to help.”

In that small touch, Kurama felt embraced, owned.

“You’re scary,” Kaito murmured.

Kurama opened his eyes. “That’s a childish thing to say.”

“Compared to you, am I a child?”

Kurama contemplated his classmate. His tone was habitually arrogant, though his words and manners were not. His voice was nasal and his sentences were well planned, full formed in his mind before they were spoken. Kaito’s mouth was stretched in a contemplative smile, eyes low with a studied sadness. He was outside a story he wanted to be in.

Kurama grinned, looking down. “Isn’t your birthday before mine, sempai?”

Kaito laughed, his black curls bouncing back from his eyes.

In the apartment, the young man immediately disappeared to make tea, leaving Kurama to his own devices.

“Make yourself at home.”

The rug was thick; his socks felt like snowshoes. Kurama shuffled around the modest apartment, made tiny by bookshelves. There were three pieces of amateur art on one wall, hung tightly together. They depicted blooms with exaggerated delicately lined forms, their leaves thick and verdantly alive.

“These are interesting,” Kurama said.

“My sister’s.” Kaito handed over a cup of tea. “Take one if you’d like it.”

Kurama touched one that had more blue in it than the rest. “I would. It’s alright?”

“She’ll be pleased. I have something else of hers to show you.” Kaito moved to a writing desk and drew from the mess atop it a long rolled sheet, thin as butcher’s paper. “Let me explain before you look, so you have the context for why this silly thing exists.”

Kurama came over, holding the small frame. Kaito pulled the band off the rolled sheet with a twang. “She contracts with the police as a sketch artist. I complained to her about you after the House of Four Directions. No details, mind you, not the context or magic. Just that you were a ruthless, creative psycho…”

Kurama covered his face, grinning.

“She used my description of you as a subject.”

As the paper unrolled, Kurama caught a glimpse of the eyes – cruel and crying and remorseless. “Oh no.”

“I hoped to give it to you. It felt like a betrayal to have it in the house without your knowledge. Look and see what I mean; it’s like a photograph.”

Kurama sighed and looked.

It was clearly disjointed; the features were cobbled together, but they were quite correct.

“Your sister has a talent for drawing criminals,” Kurama said.

Kaito turned it. “I thought so too.”

Kurama looked again. “The mouth is good.”

“You’re smirking in it.”

Kurama smirked.

“There,” Kaito crowed, smug. “Perfect likeness.”

Kurama knelt down on the carpet. There was no table, except a tiny one near the window. Kaito joined him and they pulled out their books.

As the lead of his pencil touched the paper, Kaito murmured, “Do you really want to study?”

Kurama kept his eyes on the paper.

His body groaned like an empty house in a windstorm, foundations leaning. He had a fear inside himself that he couldn’t name yet, but he knew enough of instinct to err on the side of caution.

He stared at the paper for a moment before moving his hand again, writing the date neatly on his notes. His hand trembled. “I would like to study.”
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The Library of Alexandria