Adult-FanFiction.org : YuYu Hakusho

Risk of Conviction	By : Artemick Category: Yuyu Hakusho > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 4082 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own YYH characters/names/anything, or the songs and lyrics that were used to name the titles and are cited at the end of each section. I do not make any money out of their use and abuse.

Chapter List
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1. AS LONG AS YOU CAN NOW

Prince Koenma made an unreasonable threat, to which I offered an unreasonable request.

“Please listen.” It was my only, best card. “I offer my services as a thief and fighter in exchange for being allowed to live as a human, with my family.”

I waited in silence.

“That is all you want?”

I nodded.

“Do you expect to retain your power?” Prince Koenma made it sound laughable.

I stared at my shaking fingers, folded carefully together and pressed to the floor. “Each day who I am and my relation to my mother are more commonly known. Each day a stronger demon is able to find me and force a wasteful fight. Powerless, I would be killed in a moment or co-opted into planning something much worse. My mother would die.”

“And you enjoy plants? You love living things.” Prince Koenma squatted down, his eyes crinkling in a grin.

I met his gaze, then looked down, stunned at the ridicule behind his pleasant words. I could not place the insult, but I felt it. He was like a child that tortures worms on the sidewalk instead of brushing them to the grass. He was not only cruel; he thought compassion was amusing.

He patted my head, like I were a dog. “I could threaten your mother or control your access to her. You are in danger if even a stranger like me can read you like a book! I thought foxes were clever.”

I let out a desperate breath. “They always return to a single den.”

“That’s true.” The prince gave me a soft look. His voice lifted with cheer. “And because of that, you’re no flight risk.”

I looked up.

Prince Koenma leaned back against his desk. He crossed his arms, smiling at my hope and his control of it. “You will be released under provision, and yes, called back when we need you.”

“Thank you…” I edged forward, placing my hand behind his knee in a gesture of supplication as old as tides. “And – “

I felt my heart pounding, my face flushed, but I had not come here to be damned for pride.

“Please.”

He smiled, looking down over his crossed arms.

“You are of course allowed to remain with your mother.”

“Thank you,” I bowed again to the floor, completely submitting, boneless with joy. “Thank you.”

“It’s no trouble at all. The Ningenkai has been a good enough holding cell for you. Your acclimation there is admirable. And congratulations on your graduation. We hear you’re doing quite well.”

I let my forehead drop, exhausted. My head pounded; my blood pressure had rocketed as I tensed and now I was fighting the edges of a migraine. “Yes, thank you.”

“I don’t get to meet so many middle school convicts,” he chortled, but I saw no amusement in it. I heard his slippers scuff the carpet as he walked around my head. I stayed on the ground, pathetic as dirt.

Prince Koenma shuffled some papers on his desk.

“We’ve got a little paperwork now…”

“Of course.”

I was thinking of my mother’s smile, the bemused love in her face as I lied to her and left. She had peered at me and wiped a rough checkered dish towel over her soapy hands, the hands that had protected me for so long, which I must now protect.

I sat back on my knees. Looking down, I held my hands together; they were trembling.

“Are you grateful?”

I looked up, startled. But I was still euphoric and only bowed again. “Very much. I look forward to working with you, sir. I will be a loyal employee.”

“What do you think of me?”

“Sir, you are everything Urameshi described.”

“Your craft lends you diplomacy, I suppose,” Koenma mused. “You’re an incredible liar.”

“No, I am not lying.”

The prince’s face took the look of a cat pawing at a moving string. Even the false taunt of doubt made him draw me to his teeth with his claws. His lips twisted up. “Liar. Kurama, don’t you have a shred of honest feeling?”

I swallowed.

“A great deal of shame,” I admitted in whisper. “And love.”

“Mm, well. Should have thought of that before we caught you trying to destroy the world.”

“I was trying to save my world, exactly that! What could I do, come to your authority? How could I feel anything towards your government after the hunts…” I stopped.

The prince raised his eyebrows. I remembered Koenma and his government didn’t have to treat Yoko as a human. I was a criminal and demon. They were judge and jury and enforcement. They could rip my soul in two, condemn Yoko to damnation, and send Shuichi home insane.

For a jailer, Koenma was gentle. For an interrogator, he was humane. He was the prince; I was a trespasser and a thief. In my youth, thieves had their muscles torn and whipped off by the demon lords they stole from. This was lenient.

“Forgive me,” I backtracked. “You are merciful; it is only my pride fighting.”

Prince Koenma nodded, a grin screwing up his mouth. He seemed to be listening intently, but he was spinning a fountain pen between his fingers, a little desk trick of someone with too much time and boredom in their schedule.

I cleared my throat, trying a smile. “Do you need me to sign anything?”

“Yes.” He looked back at the papers. “There is still the matter of your punishment, Kurama.”

“I will be cooperative.”
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Risk of Conviction