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Humidity	By : thothmoon Category: Yuyu Hakusho > Yaoi - Male/Male > Hiei/Kurama Views: 2382 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own YuYu Hakusho, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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A/N: So you may notice the incongruity between the date of this chapter's completion written below, and the date of publication wherein you fantastic folk get to see it. My sincerest apologies, but my old, mostly-loyal desktop's wireless adapter deigned no longer to pick up the network at my house, and I was without Internet access here for about a month and a half. That issue is now resolved, and any further delay in updates in the future will most probably be due to my own laziness.
But I haven't been lazy in this instance, rest assured! I have a few updates under my belt and awaiting their turn to ride the interwebz, including this story's next chapter after the one you see on the screen before you. So please, read, enjoy (or, if you must, don't)--and please, if you have anything at all to say, I would love to hear from you. I meanwhile will work to wrap this story up in a timelier manner than past, and the next finished chapter ought to be made viewable sometime next week.
Enjoy!
Humidity

Chapter V

Break

31 October 2011
Hiei dreamt of a youth.
At first glance the youth appeared ridiculously vulnerable: soft, fragile, effete. One could approach him and not feel the fool for feeling superior and secure in power.
But of course, that was a front, a ploy.
Too late, when one had come too close, the youth fell away like a lantern fish's lure, illuminating the terrible presence behind that painfully sweet face.
And surely as the youth fell, so did Hiei fall for that lure. Now he knelt, helpless in that terrible presence. Thorn-studded vines enchained him head to limb to limb to limb to limb. Dark, spiraled blooms grimaced up at him, faces of insanity vivid enough to drive him mad too.
Perhaps he would have complained, had he not taken a deep breath and forgotten to exhale. Some time between forgetting and remembering, a thorn had snared in his throat.
And that terrible presence had dropped the lure, had laid the snare, and perhaps worse, now deigned to not even look at his catch, distant and indifferent as a deity that does not come when called.
The deity had his own company deigned suitable to fraternize with. Pan the Goat God presided nearby on a throne of white birch, the indifferent tormentor curled up to his side. Hiei turned his eyes away, only to discover that he was not the deities' only audience:
Scores of raving women, white and cold as that damn white Fox, writhed nearby. Helplessly Hiei gazed at his other tormentor, but with all façade of the youth wilted away, only the icy skeleton remained, and that was currently enrapt in tracing a finger below his chosen consort's shadowed eye. Hiei parted his lips to call a name, but his throat was thick with the thorn, so of course no name called, and no name came.
Emiko.
And the ice-maenads cut into Hiei like a frigid wind. Impotently he bared his teeth as they sank in their claws and tore his flesh asunder. Beneath the bacchanal he stared up at his negligent, his frosty Bacchus. Bacchus stared coldly into space, chewing a vine of sinew. Something round like fruit glistened at the end, and Pan's face streamed red.
Bound in those insane vines, Hiei's vision ran red. Wearily, he stared out past the mad, the depraved, and the cannibal. He made his focal point a single glimmer of white in the distance—always, that elusive white.
Pan wept blood while Bacchus ate his eyes like grapes. Hiei—and who was he, if he was anyone?—stared out at that glimmer of white: an uninitiated maiden on the periphery. He opened his mouth…
Yuki—
No name came. The thorn twisted in his throat, and blood spattered on his lips.

Hiei's body took a deep breath, and forgot to let it out. Meanwhile the air inside the apartment grew stagnant and heavy, and his body ached from the weight of it.
That was how he felt at least, the most physically apt correspondent to what he felt otherwise: bored and listless in the Human World, watching t.v. and watering Kurama's plants, while the Fox was in Gandhara, land of the governor with the white Fox consort.
—And Hiei had seen Yomi consort with the white Fox in the past, and he wanted, needed that fool demon Denbun to be senile.
The clouds hung black and heavy over the temple when Hiei returned. He would find Denbun and demand his precise definition of that term, consort. Even if the context of their earlier conversation left Hiei little hope for a misunderstanding…
"Hiei?"
Damn if his toes didn't skid in their tracks the instant he was caught off guard—off guard—by that inquiry, that voice. Looking up the temple steps, Hiei struggled to unpurse his lips, and managed a simple utterance:
"Yu…"
Utterance indeed. Hiei coughed, or pretended to, and said louder, "Yukina. Is Kuwabara with you?" Now that he actually made himself aware of his surroundings, he didn't sense the psychic anywhere.
Yukina tilted her chin skyward. She wore a sleeveless shirt, pale pink in color. It matched the slight flush in her cheeks; like Kurama, she was very fair, and Koorime on top of that. Hiei wondered what those frozen women on the isle would think of the neckline of her shirt—they'd both deviated from their origins.
The cords of her throat—how many had Hiei cut in his lifetime?—showed taut against her flesh a moment as she lowered her gaze from the sky back to him. "It's supposed to storm," she said, "so he went back into town for some supplies. He wanted me to go with him, but I promised Genkai I would be here watching the temple. It gets more visitors these days, you know?"
Hiei nodded blankly. Sure, whatever. He felt stupefied, like the sockets of his skull had expanded to a grotesque scale and rate, threatening to cave in all his other features. He dare not express himself too facially for fear of it.
"Hiei." Yukina pronounced his name so urgently that he physically started as though struck, and blinked rapidly when he looked to her in answer. "Are you okay? Your face looks all gray and clammy."
He pinched his lips together, sucked in his cheeks until smooth little pockets of flesh ground between his teeth. That couldn't have helped his expression any. "My eyes hurt," he replied dismissively. "I've been watching too much television. It makes me sleep poorly." She continued to look at him thoughtfully and he shifted on his feet, uncomfortable with her gaze. "I was resting before I came here," he added lamely. "It wasn't very refreshing. Maybe my face hasn't fully woken yet."
She gave him a pitying look, which he loathed. "You're not recovered fully from your illness," she guessed, "are you?"
His illness—"illness"—which Mukuro scorned and Kurama guessed, but Yukina was the first outsider to that matter to take notice and show concern. But then his illness persisted now into the summer, since the marriage announcement, so perhaps Yukina was less an outsider to that matter, or rather, that new matter, that added matter, than previously. Either way, neither matter was a matter he wanted to discuss, so in answer he shrugged, concession and feigned indifference. And then:
"It's Kurama." Again she caught him off guard. "You miss him, don't you?"
That cut like a spoon, safe though the inquiry may have seemed. He took a breath—not a particularly deep one, because he was already bloated with stagnant air; not a particularly cleansing one, because he felt too damned toxic—and replied, pained, "I do. He's gone back and forth a lot lately." Yukina nodded sympathetically, looked for all intents like she thought she understood, though Hiei knew better.
And then she said, "He struggles a lot. I worry about him."
Hiei thought he'd known better. "Hn?" he exhaled involuntarily.
"And you worry about him too, Hiei," she said. "He goes back and forth, you mean that more than just going back and forth between the physical worlds. It's why he went to the hospital, isn't it?" Hiei stared at her. "I know the version that he told his parents, but I think that's because he needed an excuse that they could relate to, because they wouldn't be able to comprehend the literal reason. Even if he's feeling better now, it still must be hard on him, trying to coordinate his own life with his mother's people. So I worry about him."
It wasn't as though everyone was oblivious—the others had known before Hiei that something, even if they didn't know what, was amiss with Kurama, by virtue that they had been around and Hiei had not. Perhaps his absence, in addition to Kurama's personal feelings, had been its own virtue, opening something in the Fox that he felt compelled to suppress when he acted through the mundane. The point was, even Hiei with his three eyes had difficulty peering far beyond what Kurama himself volunteered, and so now, the perfection of hindsight aside, he could barely politely conceal gawking at Yukina, a little impressed at her perceptiveness.
However, he must have done a passable job, because Yukina took no notice of herself being scrutinized. Instead, she continued, "But I think he helps the apparitions here when he does that, even if it's hard for him. That someone like him lives the way he does now, in the Human World, and still maintains his ties, important ties to the Demon World, I think it makes everyone who wants a place in the overlap feel less like they're betraying themselves, like they don't have to abandon everything when they step forward to something new."
Hiei chewed the inside of his mouth. Someone like Kurama. Not that Kurama was the first or only demon to take up residence in the Human World, but he saw what Yukina meant. Kurama, even if he expatriated at first by necessity, regained the ability to return but declined. He was already maintaining an existence in the Human World of his own free will when Hiei became a reluctant denizen by means of punishment, and he maintained his foreign status, even finding ways back when relations between the two worlds were ambiguous, when they two and Yusuke were technically classified in the Demon World. Hiei had stayed in Demon World, even if he visited his former prison more frequently and more freely now. Yusuke straddled a position both similar to and different from Kurama's; even if their situations had been carbon copies, and they were not, Yusuke "won" by virtue that his was the inverted story, the one who rose from human to demon status; his story, barring a Raizen-like stunt, opened up only to even potentially higher endings; whereas Kurama willingly, even willfully maintained the status that most of their kind deemed inferior, or at least puzzling, and even now Hiei didn't know how it would finally end—he was at this point gun-shy about applying any potential endings of any kind to Kurama. But endings aside, naturally what Yukina was saying held weight, that Kurama in flux, while worrisome to Hiei and others close to him, would serve as some sort of role model to the more peaceable, adaptable demons, perhaps not the kingly visionaries but the quieter, queerer radicals.
Such as Yukina, with that in mind.
BOOM!
The sky lit up, as though to indicate by sight to anyone deafened by the preceding thunderclap, Here comes the storm.
Instantly Yukina's gaze went skyward once more. "I hope Kazuma's still at the store," she murmured. "Or someplace with a roof."
Hiei swallowed, though he hated to; his insides felt thick, and he entertained a sick thought that perhaps he'd feel some relief from purging himself, as the clouds were about to themselves, but then Yukina really would have grounds to call out his condition.
"He'll hold up even if he's not," he conceded, to reassure her. He eyed the temple compound behind them. "You should take shelter too," he said, and then inclined his face toward the trees. Perhaps he would still intercept Denbun on that demon's way in from the rain.
"And you too, Hiei," Yukina said insistently, almost indignantly, as Hiei had swiveled his feet to match his head. "You won't make it home in time, it's already starting to sprinkle."
Hiei shrugged. "I'll be fine."
"Hiei!" Her tone had gone from almost indignant to almost stern. "You've been ill recently, you don't need to be out in the rain."
Was that all? He pulled his lips into a bemused smile for her benefit. "I thought you knew it's not that kind of illness; a little rain won't hurt me."
"Going to a house alone, then," she said, looking at him out of a face whose features were set in what almost qualified as a pout. "You were ill because Kurama was ill. You struggle because Kurama struggles. But Kurama's in the Demon World right now."
Damn it that she was perceptive. He spun around on his toes, back toward her. "You could have said you wanted company," he said faux-indifferently, following her to the Temple.
An awkward air awaited them inside, heavy and still. Or rather, not so much still, as brimming with a multitude of smaller, myriad and perhaps interconnecting energies, not of specific demons but random thoughts and emotions, frenzying alongside each other in an illusion of solidity; so not so much still, as asphyxiating. Hiei sat with his back against the wall, bracing himself against all the noisy silence that he perceived, or suspected, and boots discarded, idly flexed his toes, watching the cords of his feet while Yukina lit several oil lamps. One lamp was situated slightly higher than Yukina was tall, and the cords of her white neck stuck out again as she rose on tip toe to get to it.
Always that elusive white. And who was he, if he was anyone?
"Hiei," Yukina said, turning once more toward him. Dully he looked up in response. "Would you like some tea or anything? You still look clammy."
Clammy. He was a clam dashed on the prickling sea, smashed on the brittle land, and torn apart by mad flocks of birds while Bacchus ate Pan's eyes like grapes. He squeezed his own eyes shut, opened them again, and swallowed. Take a breath; no Kurama around to soothe him through panic.
"I'm hot," he finally answered, but then came the internal debate of whether or not he should discard his cloak for demonstration. An idea he quickly nixed. "Whatever I have, I might try to sweat it out," he decided. "I would like some tea." Something to swallow, other than his own bile, and the force that had brought him back here. It gnawed at him still, and finally he felt compelled to ask, on her heels as she left for water, "Have you seen Denbun?"
"Denbun?" She turned a pensive face his way. "Denbun who arrived today? Do you know him?"
Hiei didn't want to explain his earlier visit. "Barely," he answered her. "He's from Gandhara. I had a question about the affairs there." He kept his voice steady, bored even, despite the regrettable word choice.
"Kurama's affairs there?" Yukina asked. Hiei nodded cautiously, and she in turn nodded as though in understanding. "It's one of the reasons I worry about him."
Her tone was too ambiguous. "What do you mean?" Hiei murmured, wondering just how perceptive she was.
"Because he goes back and forth," she said, shrugging as though it were inevitable. And perhaps it was. "This time on my behalf, though…" Now she looked cautious, but continued: "Sometimes I hope that he comes back with nothing to show for it." Hiei stared at her blankly. "He told you he was talking to Yomi's shinobi for me, didn't he?"
Ah. "You asked help to find your way home."
"No." Yukina pursed her lips, shook her head a little. "Not home. My homeland, yes, but not my home for a while now. Especially now, because I don't want to go ho—back." Hiei tilted his head. "I don't want to go back," Yukina repeated. "I want them to know that I'm getting married. The Elders were kind to me growing up, but I know that if I do find my way back to tell them, I'll probably receive little more regard than our mother."
Hiei's guts contracted, a painful experience. Outside thunder rumbled.
"Mine and my brother's mother," Yukina continued. "Because I am making the choice that she did, but I won't try to hide it and I won't try to repent from it. They won't be pleased if they know, but they didn't give me their blessing when I left before, and I'm not looking for a blessing now."
Hiei listened, to the words on the surface surely, but with an ear for something not articulated but still audible, deep, deep down in the words, toothed and primordial. Beneath all that soft powdery substance was another, perhaps not harder but firmer substance, not ice but steel, not martial or defensive like a blade, but sturdy unto itself, a frame. Such was Yukina's construction, not easily demolished.
Still he wondered: "If their regard is worthless to you, why bother trying to relay the information to them to begin with?"
She shook her head again. "No, not them, not really. If I can, I want to find Rui. You remember Rui?"
His first thought was to his recent experience of that lapse that Kurama called a panic attack, and he burned with shame. "I remember you telling me about her," he replied. "I remember Kuwabara saying you want her to come to the wedding."
She nodded, smiling a little wistfully. "That would be nice, but I don't know. I don't think she would disapprove, but she wouldn't be able to act on that freely. If I found her and told her, and she did come, she probably wouldn't be able to return. She regrets what happened to my brother and our mother, but she still lives on the Floating Isle."
Rui had asked Hiei to kill her first, had begged him to deliver retribution. There were those who were unable to, or unable to believe themselves capable, to right the wrong, to neutralize or elevate something amiss, and they chose death, or living death, awaiting deliverance, any kind of deliverance, from an external power.
"But even if she couldn't bring herself to come, I would like her to know," Yukina concluded. "If I can't tell her that I found my brother at last, I can still show her that at least one of Hina's children left that life for something elevated. Or—" She made an exhalation that sounded like a laugh. "I mean, elevated like a better way of life. I guess it would be hard to elevate physically beyond a floating island, right?"
If Hiei were Kurama on a regular day, perhaps he would point out that sometimes in order to attain a better way, people had to gamble with a descent, and that there were at least several prominent tales to back that argument up. But Hiei was Hiei, on a relatively shitty day no less, and he said nothing.
The cords pressed shadows against the white of Yukina's neck as she visibly swallowed. "Even if I can't tell her for sure," she murmured, "I hope that if I found her, I could tell her that my brother found a better way, too—"
Yukina uttered the vowel sound of that last syllable, only to prolong and inflect it by suddenly sucking it back in. Hiei noted the change in intonation and looked his eyes up, narrowed his eyes in focus on her. The cords pressed shadows against the gray of Yukina's neck as she visibly swallowed. Her lips pursed and parted, as though to say something, but nothing came out before they pursed again. The lamps illuminated and accentuated a clammy perspiration on her skin.
Hiei's body let out the stagnant breath it had long held, as might someone who has had the wind knocked out of them, and he forced his locked nerves to soften and flex as he jumped up and braced his hands against Yukina's shoulders as her feet lost their bracing against the floor. "Yukina," he said, suppressing the panic in his voice so as not to elevate any in her.
Her head squirmed on her neck, and her face found its way peering around at his. "The air," she murmured. "The air's so full, it's hard to breathe—" And saying such her own breath hitched, and her face contorted as she fought control over a pained expression. "It makes me a little sick I guess. But I was supposed to get you some tea because you're sick, wasn't I? I'm sorry."
"No," Hiei said, and strengthened his hold on her as she tried to move, feet slipping against the smooth floor, almost as though she were trying to swim through the room. "I'm fine, Yukina, thank you. Do you need tea?"
"No," she murmured, pulling air in through her nose and pushing it out through her mouth. She almost grimaced. "I need fresh air."
Someone, Hiei himself, he supposed, since he had followed her into the temple, hadn't closed the door all the way, and the floor going out to the porch was already wet when Hiei kicked the door the rest of the way open and helped Yukina outside, keeping hold of her in case she fell. She straightened up and offered her face to the stormy breeze, taking in several deep, methodical breaths.
And startling Hiei as she flung them back out to the wind in a loud, harsh sob. "Are you okay?" he asked dumbly as she bowed toward the rain.
"I need…" she murmured.
Hiei's gut swam, swarmed with the Emiko, with the Dragon spewing smoke and fire and extinguishing everything in darkness, forcing those pastoral gods Pan and Bacchus to turn parasitic for sustenance, the lord of Gandhara and his white Fox-consort clawing the Dragon's wingtips as it flew circles deep, deep down inside him. He steeled himself against the increasing urge to retch, and managed to get out instead, "What do you need?"
She shuddered against him and he thought for a moment that she would retch instead, but then she stilled, and turned her wet face up toward the sky.
"I want my brother," she said, the wind all but snatching the request from Hiei's ears.
His forehead twitched painfully. The Jagan had joined the party, glaring over the scene while the Emiko emanated the dark flames that made the Dragon that destroyed everything. Those three attributes of Hiei, the Jaganshi, the Forbidden Child, the Dragon; taboo, darkness, that low thing.
Lightning crackled through the sky, warping the familiar temple scene with mosaics of brilliance and darkness, light and shadow.
Yet who among them that had lived thus far, had not at some point balanced upon or even broken some taboo, taken a plunge and risen up the higher for it? And perhaps that solemnity, fear, reverence, contemptuous awe, all that pathological ceremony that hovered over their experiences, was just so much hot air. Something twisted like a barb in Hiei's stomach, but he closed his eyes against it, drew cooling air deep into his chest, lengthened his spine.
"I am your brother, Yukina," Hiei exhaled, voice near to inaudible in the boom of thunder resounding over the temple.
The lightning made enhanced mirrors of Yukina's eyes when Hiei opened his and found her staring him in the face. Her lips moved, but her reply was lost in the twin thunderclap that followed.
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Humidity