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-:[ Past Crimes ]:- ({ Ch.12 - 16}) |
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12
Hiei was awake, when the first distant chirps of nameless birds sounded in the predawn darkness, and when the sun soundlessly lightened the sky to a mottled grayish blue, criss-crossed with telephone wires and the fat silhouettes of mourning doves. He sat against the bare white wall, folded arms propped up on his knees, aside from the window with slats of daylight above him falling onto the lacquered wood floor. He never moved, even as the muffled stirrings of Kazutaka rising with the sun penetrated his walls. He listened intently to the sounds of the floorboards creaking, imagining how the covers of Kazutaka’s futon would rustle as he got up, and trying to picture each step he would take to get ready for work.
Of course he would shed yesterday’s wrinkled shirt like a starched crinkly shell, and neatly fasten a tie under the smooth collar of a fresh one. Of course his rumpled gray pants would be magically re-ironed. Of course his glasses would just reappear, tucked neatly in their place inside his breastpocket. Hiei couldn’t imagine it any other way.
The distant sound of water running into the bathroom sink echoed through the apartment. A fleeting image of Kazutaka brushing his teeth, poised and bowing over the white bathroom sink to spit, crossed Hiei’s mind.
The running water ceased, and all was quiet. Hiei remained motionless.
Perhaps he was running a wet comb through his mop of silver hair. Or could he be standing just as still, one ivory hand folded on the edge of the sink, remembering with disgust the shape of an eye underneath his fingertips....
Hiei’s expression tightened as he sat staring at the floor.
There was a clack of red plates from the kitchen, and the heavy clank of a pot or pan being placed on the stove-burner. The refrigerator door opened with a light rattling of bottles, and then after a moment, closed again with a deep muffled slap of its rubber insulation.
Silently to himself, Hiei timed each span of quiet, gauging whether it might have been the slightest bit long enough for Kazutaka’s thoughts to stray. He listened fixedly, his tense scowl locked to a handful of dust-motes settling wanly in the slivers of pale sun, without so much as blinking once.
Gradually, there came the snap and pop of food cooking, and then the earthy bitter aroma of brewing coffee mingled with the delicious yellow smell of eggs began to seep through the cracks of Hiei’s closed door.
Hiei’s sharp scarlet eyes shifted, stopping just beyond the dusty lines of sunlight, frozen, before his eyes could reach the seam under his door. Even without looking at it, that wafer-thin space felt like a crack into a whole other world, where things like ‘morning’ with it’s unguarded sounds and smells waited menacingly.
A chair scraped harshly across the tiles of the kitchen floor. It echoed through the still apartment, as if to highlight its emptiness, as Kazutaka sat down.
It was unusual for Hiei to be asleep so late, but it wasn’t unheard of. Kazutaka’s gray eye shifted to the red mug of steaming coffee beside Hiei’s plate. He wondered if Ma-Lyn had come back to torture Hiei with more nightmares and he hadn’t been there to worry over him. Kazutaka’s eye followed a curl of steam up above the cup; at least Hiei was sleeping now. Kazutaka cut into his eggs and watched the yellow yolks bleed across the red plate as he swallowed his first bite. It wouldn’t be long before Hiei woke; Kazutaka gathered another mouthful of warm dripping-yellow eggs onto his fork.
Shut inside his room, Hiei listened to the noise of Kazutaka’s fork as if he were a mile away. What was he thinking as he sat in the empty kitchen? What was he remembering? A tiny part of himself insisted it was all in his head, that Kazutaka couldn’t have remembered anything after the small dose of youkai Hiei had given him. But all his life Hiei had been wary of taking chances-- he had not been born lucky -- and the sneering little voices of doubt were dripping their poison down his back and into his ears, paralyzing him until all Hiei could do was listen like a stone statue, closed off to everything but sound.
Why in all of Reikai had he taken such a chance? Only a complete fool would’ve risked so much on a mere impulse. What the hell had possessed him to make such a reckless decision? Hiei felt the tight strain returning to his gut, deepening the frown he fixed on the floor by a fraction. What would he do if Kazutaka remembered...?
The small noise of metal on red ceramic sounded loud and sadly final as Kazutaka laid his fork down in a misty film of yellow eggyolk. He glanced over at Hiei’s lukewarm mug, and pushed back the cuff of his sleeve to check his watch. Five after six; he was beginning to worry. It was already too late to start washing the dishes, and only a few more minutes before he was late for his shift at the Daidokoro no Mado. Was Hiei sick?
Kazutaka’s grey gaze drifted over Hiei’s cold plate of eggs from behind his glasses’ silver frames; it was probably nothing. As early as Hiei had always risen, he had never hidden his contempt for early mornings. He had probably just decided to sleep late for once, and Kazutaka was not one to begrudge him a good rest after yesterday’s stressful events.
An insubstantial sigh escaped Kazutaka’s nose as he stood up beside his chair and cleared away his empty plate and mug.
Ma-Lyn. Why was it always Ma-Lyn... That girl must have been born under a black star to get so tangled up in other people’s lives, always in the worst ways. Kazutaka’s plate clinked softly against his mug inside the steel sink, and he reached absently for the faucet to rinse the gluey eggyolk away. Things would’ve been fine, maybe even worked out according to plan, if Ma-Lyn hadn’t attached herself to the one thing Kazutaka wouldn’t let her have. As the eggyolk was blasted away, the plate shone a deep wet red through the running water under Kazutaka’s gaze. And still she’d come back to haunt them both, to make Hiei suffer more... The dishes in the sink were drowning, Kazutaka realized, and shut off the water with a flip of his white hand.
The silence of the apartment was suddenly deafening. Not a sound came from Hiei’s room.
As Kazutaka thought back, all of the previous day seemed to end in a blur. He frowned a little; how had it ended...? God, he couldn’t remember anything at all...
He had a vague notion of it being pitch-dark, and there had been something warm and flat and alive underneath his palm... No, not flat; there had been a soft bump... an eyelid....
Kazutaka’s frown had become furrowed with confusion. His memory had never been so muddled before; he had no idea what to make of it. Perhaps if he tried again to remember... But there was nothing to remember except what his hand had felt: feathery soft wisps of hair brushing his fingers, a warm velvety eyelid, and the sudden flash of tiny lashes opening. And all this seemed surrounded by the familiar sense of Hiei, like a spice with no smell that just lingered in the air and gave it heat.
Perhaps it was something from a dream that he couldn’t quite remember. Afterall Hiei was not one for closeness. Not in the slightest, no. And dreams were not one for making sense, Kazutaka thought with interest as he hazily recalled the feel of a hot forehead under his palm.
Kazutaka glanced down at his right hand, resting on the edge of the metal sink, and turned over his palm, rubbing the pads of his white fingers together as if there might be something left from the dream to feel. An eye... placed rather perfectly in the center of Hiei’s smooth forehead.... Somehow, it didn’t seem as strange as it should have... Kazutaka’s single grey eye traced the lines of his palm as his mind wandered, and the slightest curve touched his lips; the whole idea seemed almost fitting.
Why could Hiei make something as bizarre as an eye in one’s forehead seem perfectly acceptable; was it something specific about him...? No, it was something else; like an aura. Something even more subtle than Hiei himself could detect. Kazutaka stood still as white marble beside the kitchen sink, conjuring memories of Hiei and just thinking.
A sudden cartoonish image of a glaring ogre with small blunt horns protruding from its hair and Hiei’s scowling face invaded Kazutaka’s mind.
His soft smile shaped a gentle soundless laugh. Yes, that was about right. Hiei could easily be a cranky little demon like that. Kazutaka checked the watch beneath his shirtsleeve and stepped away from the kitchen sink, half lost in ridiculous daydreams. Though, Hiei would be a bit too small to be a horned bulky oni... he would be something much lighter, faster....
The quiet noise of Kazutaka’s footsteps creaked across the apartment, like an audible pang of loneliness. It made the few paces to their apartment door seem longer and harder, and Kazutaka tried to ignore the way the silence gnawed, tried harder to sink into lighthearted musing about the kind of yokai that would suit Hiei.
As Kazutaka kneeled, put his own shoes on, and reached for the gleaming metal doorhandle, he glanced fondly over at the pair of black motorcycle boots by the door.
Kazutaka’s smile widened a fraction.
A “speed-demon”... Yes, that’s just what Hiei would be, he thought, and gave the handle a twist, trying not to think how loud the click of the metal latch sounded behind him as the apartment door closed.
Inside his room, Hiei’s scarlet eyes flicked up at the sound of the latch, looking through the moving dust motes at his closed door.
The silence was absolute.
As Hiei stood up, the noise of his jeans and shirt rustling seemed louder than anything. He could even hear the socks on his feet against the floor. Every movement he made seemed screaming-loud as he crossed to his door and turned the handle with a metallic clatch that echoed like tiny thunder through the empty apartment.
Hiei’s steps creaked through the open livingroom, and were muffled by the kitchen tiles. There was his cold breakfast, sitting like a ceramic red and yellow corpse beside his mug of coffee, and the mug looked so still without the merry wisps of steam. He wanted to touch the side of the mug, feel for some last touch of warmth in the thing, as if it might still be alive. His sharp scarlet gaze swept over the cup and the plate of clammy eggs, and he kept his arm from reaching. He knew how it would feel, how cold they would be, those dishes. Why the hell did he want to touch them anyway? He’d felt both warm and cold plates plenty of times before, and he’d eaten cold food all the time before; sometimes it was even raw and still bleeding.
Hiei’s piercing gaze shifted to the sink, where Kazutaka’s red plate and mug sat filled with water, each surface as still as his cold coffee. There wasn’t so much as a speck of food left on them. Looking at them, it felt like they were someone else’s dishes, some stranger’s; not a trace of Kazutaka was left to mark them.
Hiei clenched his fists abruptly and a sound of exasperation escaped him.
Goddammit; why was he staring at dishes! Screw the damn dishes! Dishes were the last of his problems.
Hiei’s scowl swept the kitchen again; perfectly clean, just as Kazutaka would have it. Standing beside the sink, he turned and quickly scanned the rest of the apartment; again nothing. The wood floors shone, the tan sofa appeared as neat and plush as it had always been, the kitchen was spotless and all the dishes were stacked neatly in the metal sink; there was absolutely nothing out of place or suspicious at all.
Was there really nothing? No little thing, like a hair or a lost button, that would give away what Kazutaka knew? It was too much to hope for, far too much. Hiei’s fists tightened; he’d made a horrible, foolish mistake. There was no way he could even dare to hope that nothing was wrong.
No... Hiei’s piercing red eyes scoured everything again and again. No, there had to be something. There was no ‘getting lucky’ with a slip-up like this. Somewhere here, there was a thing that proved it. He just hadn’t found it yet.
Only fools dared to hope. How long had he known that fact, and still he had tried to ignore it. A forceful youkai profanity hissed softly between Hiei’s clenched teeth.
He was caught in the face of his own conflict.
There was still something in him that wanted to be wrong, something that wanted to hope. And it was shameful. It was so childish, this tiny little ember of hope, that he wanted the satisfaction of seeing it stomped dead and cold, to prove it was true that only fools hoped.
It would sicken him to watch that little ember die its tiny death, without a doubt, he knew that. He would feel no better. But the larger part of Hiei was appalled that such a naive weakness as hope still existed somewhere in him; like a multiplying virus, like a spreading crack. It would kill him a little inside to so brutally squash that naïve seed, like it had a thousand times before, but again he had to know that he was no fool anymore.
Hiei could not stop looking until he’d found the thing, the one thing that would destroy his tiny foolish hope that all was well. Because good fortune was not real, and therefore not to be believed. Only fools believed. And Hiei was no fool.
The narrow polished boards beneath Hiei’s feet creaked poisonously as he walked out into the middle of the room, scouring everything in sight. Floor, walls, couch, damned kitchen with all its dishes; all immaculate. He turned around, and scorched the open door of his bedroom with a glare. Of course, nothing. His sharp eyes snapped over the short distance to Kazutaka’s door, and he froze instantly.
The simple wood door, twin to his own, was standing ever so slightly ajar.
In there. It had to be in there.
Hiei reached the door in a second, without a single thought for restraining his yokai movements, and threw the door wide.
He stood in the doorway, his palm still pressed flat against the door as if he were holding it aside, his piercing scarlet irises darting mechanically over Kazutaka’s entire room, taking in all the things he had never glimpsed before.
Kazutaka’s futon and blanket sat rolled-up neatly to one side, tucked inconspicuously against the wall, leaving the wood floor open and bare. A closet in the opposite wall with its flimsy accordion-door pushed firmly shut, looked thin and two-dimensional, more like a flat wood panel glued to the white wall than anything with depth. A tall light wood dresser stood beside the closed closet, its wide drawers securely closed; a wicker laundry hamper peeped out from behind the dresser’s corner. Not a scrap of clothing stuck out from under its lid.
One small matching wood table, barely above knee-height, sat in the corner like a meek altar, presenting a plain white vase of dried red roses. A single stiff dark leaf had fallen onto the table, where the polished wood reflected it like a stain.
Hiei glanced over it all again. That was it? This was all that Kazutaka kept in his room? Somehow Hiei had expected more. Not more things, or more decoration; but, just more.
Slowly, Hiei’s hand left the bedroom door and he took a step into the room, his eyes still scanning the plain monklike furnishings. This room was lived-in, yes, but there was such a lack of personality that it seemed emptier than the whole of the apartment had a moment ago. A floorboard creaked under Hiei’s heel as he turned around in the middle of the room. Where was the little hint of Kazutaka that this room should’ve had? Where were all the dozens of trinkets that Hiei had seen him collect? There was nothing here, so what had happened to all of it?
Hiei opened the dresser drawers: pristine white shirts, and a rainbow of folded grey pants in another. He closed them with a sound of impatience in the back of his throat, and glanced at the top of the dresser, which was just enough above Hiei’s line of vision that he almost hadn’t looked. Hiei’s eyes narrowed.
The only thing on top of the dresser was a small wooden box, decorated with a black dragon across the lid.
Had Hiei’s smoldering stare not been locked onto the small box, he might have looked down at the uncannily similar tattoo winding down his right arm, but he was in a stupor. Instead, he reached up for the small wooden box, and he was watching it so fiercely, so suspiciously, that the box seemed bigger and he forgot to blink until his hand closed on it’s cool flat sides. Immediately, the objects inside the box --tiny and round like beads-- began to roll and shift, and Hiei’s sharp frown narrowed at the muffled clicking noises inside it.
Still glaring warily at the painted black dragon, Hiei placed his hand on the simple lid, and only after a mere moment’s hesitation, removed it.
For many days after that, Hiei wondered what he had expected to find, wondered why he would’ve expected anything at all. There were even moments when he wondered what might’ve happened if he had never shut himself in his room and let Kazutaka think he was asleep, if he had never found the box. Would he have rather not known, would it have been better?
He never came to any conclusions, but the moment he opened the box, a different plan began to work into the gentle protecting mesh of ignorance that had surrounded him, and it was ripped away instantly. It was a near wonder that his hand didn’t let the box of his own black teargems slip, and clatter to the floor, scattering deafeningly across the lacquered wood.
Hiei couldn’t seem to do anything but look into the box, paralyzed with nauseating horror and shame, and know that he was right; he had been a fool to hope.
The tiny ember was crushed black under a lead shroud, and Hiei felt it die just as he’d known he would. It was a cold, pained feeling to know he had won the bet with himself, and Hiei swore soundlessly in the silence of Kazutaka’s room.
Because he was no more and no less of a fool than he had thought.
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13
Kazutaka stood in the dark open doorway, fingers wrapped in a deathgrip around the handle.
His white businesslike shoes were still on, and he made no move to take them off. Everything was silent. The only light inside the apartment came through the windows, small and faint.
Something was wrong; he could tell. There was a feeling of something heavy and sickening settling in the pit of Kazutaka’s stomach.
Something was definitely wrong.
One look towards the shadowed kitchen showed Hiei’s food still untouched, the red dishes barely visible in the gloom, and no doubt cold as ice. The door of Hiei’s room stood wide open and empty.
Out of habit, Kazutaka’s single grey eye flicked over the door to his own room... and became locked on the gap between the door and it’s frame where it hung ajar.
Hiei had been in his room.
Kazutaka rushed across the threshold, the leather shoes still on his feet deafening against the wood floor, and crashed into his bedroom. Behind his glasses, Kazutaka’s gaze darted all around, scrutinizing everything for traces of tampering.
A pale blue glint pierced Kazutaka’s silver curtain of hair in the near-darkness as he felt his right eye stir, wide and pulsing with adrenaline. Reflexively, his pale right hand flew up to press against his hair, as if someone might have seen. A subdued glimpse of pearly white teeth showed as his jaw clenched back a vicious curse, his other hand tightening on the doorframe.
Kazutaka’s lancing grey eye settled upon the closed accordion-door of his closet. He reached it in one stride and ripped it back without a second’s hesitation, the clack of its thin wooden panels bit the air like a gunshot.
The closet’s contents were untouched, and the faintly pale shape of something cracked lay where it had been left in the deep blackness.
Kazutaka could have sank to his knees from relief if it hadn’t been for one thing:
Where was Hiei...?
~
Snff. Hiei’s nose twitched, the sound of his nostrils almost inaudible over the roar of Beauty’s engine.
He tightened his grip on the handlebars, bracing himself...
“Fuh... --HUCKTCH--!” Hiei sneezed angrily, and the bike veered dangerously from the solid yellow line in the center of the road with a sharp squeal of tires.
Hiei steadied his sleek motorcycle’s path, cursing venomously under his breath. That had been close; he had never sneezed while he was riding before. Be damned if he was going to tolerate wiping-out from something like that. Hiei spat over Beauty’s gleaming side at the wet asphalt as it streaked past beneath his tires.
The orange globes of streetlights glittered on the surface of the road, and the bold yellow roadsigns and tiny white reflectors along the guardrails flashed by and behind him as Hiei rode full-tilt down the empty highway. The thick ceiling of clouds leftover from the rain glowed a sick orange-halogen tint from the city lights on either side of the highway, kept at a deceptive distance by an endless strip of black trees and tangled brush seemingly held at bay by miles of ditch alongside the road. The ugly glow of the clouds reflected in every puddle that dashed up to sting Hiei’s knuckles and face with secondhand rain, and the whipping damp air had long since turned Hiei’s hands and wrists to ice as they held the throttle opened wide.
Once in a while, the headlights of a car going the opposite way would rush past on the other side of the highway, throwing first light then shadow across Hiei’s glaring scarlet irises. He would’ve liked to pull back his right sleeve and blast them off the road. He would’ve liked to liked to hear the Black Dragon’s roar as the swerving vehicle careened into the neverending ditch and flipped over, would’ve liked to hear the pathetic, infuriating little ningen inside it screaming.
He almost wished he could feel the Dragon slithering up his right arm and across the skin of his shoulders, just so he wouldn’t feel like he was steadily becoming one of them: Another pathetic weakling drowning in a sea of millions. He could almost feel their numbers closing in on him, like a multiplying terminal disease. The powerlessness was almost a tangible weight in his limbs, as the credence of his banishment seemed to suck him under.
Another set of headlights rushed past; Hiei’s right fist clenched and imagined the Black Dragon raging out across the ugly orange-grey clouds, free.
The roar tearing from Hiei’s throat was drowned out as he leaned forward and his frozen, aching wrist ripped back on the throttle, and the parts of Beauty’s engine shrilled as Hiei surged forward down the middle of the open highway.
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14
“What are his contract’s conditions. Exactly.”
“Whose contract? Oh, uh, Jaganshi Hiei’s probation contract...” The sound of sharply rustling paper reaches the back of Kaname Hagiri’s head like weak static over the gentle roaring noise of city wind. Somewhere over the side of the flat square roof, a car door slams and a woman’s drunken giggling floats through the air. The neon lights of the building tint the air of the streets below like a tasteless tropical margarita, but the highway is isolated and dark through Kaname Hagiri’s set of blockish military binoculars.
“..Uh, well... No use of youki...no homicidal, or otherwise disruptive activity.... um,” another document page crackles, “...Basically, he’s restricted to living as a normal human with no special rights.”
Hagiri’s binoculars do not lower.
The buzzing neon-pink light reflects off the pair of rounded eyeglasses as they are readjusted, and it tints the light blue skin of the ogre’s scrawny, unmuscled torso and slight potbelly a clownish purple. The ogre wears only a pair of starched gray shorts, creased like business pants, and a single blunt horn is visible in the middle of the its head at the point where its short black hair has been awkwardly parted with a comb.
The pink-glare on the ogre’s lenses goes dark as it glances up from the handful of documents, the papers held back by its thick blue fingers flipping back into place.
“Anything else, Mr. Hagiri?” The ogre’s voice is nasal and irritating, even over the noise of the city below them, “...Um, Mr. Hagiri...?”
Still the binoculars remain in place, and Kaname Hagiri says nothing.
A tiny black motorcycle is cruising erratically across the wet lanes of the highway, barely visible as it flashes under the streetlights, like the segmented back of a little black beetle. Its headlight is dark, and it is followed only by the greenish lenses of Hagiri’s binoculars.
The ogre clears its throat loudly, purposely rustling the papers at its side.
“Yes?” The buckled red straps of Hagiri’s racing jacket flap stiffly about his neck with the slight chill breeze.
“Uh, I was just wondering...” the ogre begins, clasping the papers in front of its naked blue ribs uncertainly.
The binoculars drop from in front of Hagiri’s eyes.
“Wondering what,” Hagiri interrupts, his voice calm but noticeably sharp with annoyance at the creature’s presence.
The ogre coughs uncomfortably; “...Is there anything else we could do for Mr. Koenma?”
Hagiri’s sharp stare wanders back to the dark highway in the distance, as if he were ignoring the ogre completely, “....Yes. There is one more thing,” Hagiri speaks slowly, calmly; “I need information about Jaganshi Hiei’s trial; detailed information.”
A flash of glasses. “Does this have anything to do with the girl we relocated at both Mr. Koenma’s and your request...?”
At first, silence. Then Kaname Hagiri glances aside in contemplation, his binoculars lowering a bit more at his side.
“...Possibly," Hagiri states flatly. He raises his chin and looks once more out to the dark ribbon of wet highway, straining to hear the tiny shrieking of a distant engine.
After a moment, Hagiri snaps the viewfinders of his small binoculars together and slips them into his red jacket pocket, turning away toward the edge of the roof. The nerdy-looking ogre straightens his handful of paperwork and nudges his round glasses higher on his blue snubnose. “Please deliver our regards to Mr. Koenma,” the ogre calls over the noise from the street below, as Hagiri reaches the low wall at the edge of the roof and swings one leg over onto the iron fire escape.
Hagiri’s steps clang as he descends unhurriedly from the contact-point, almost lazily lost in thought, to where his red motorcycle waits patiently in the alley below.
Hagiri jerks the black leather wrists of his riding-gloves snugly into place astride his bike, and takes his shiny red helmet from the handlebars, where it hangs awkwardly like a too-tall hat on a coathook, and secures it over his head.
His gloved hand pauses over an old scar, hidden beneath the zipped red chest of Hagiri’s jacket; both wondering and remembering.
Sniper’s brow furrows a little inside his helmet at the familiar knot of scar-tissue just below his breastbone, as he starts his motorcycle and revs the custom engine, setting his destination at the front of his mind.
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15
Hiei had spent three nights roaring aimlessly down city streets until the weak hours of the morning threatened sunlight. Then he would scout out a deep alley somewhere, tilt his motorcycle carefully against the bricks, and drift into an agonizingly shallow sleep with his shoulders hunched protectively against Beauty’s front tire. In a matter of a few hours, the icy touch of raindrops, or the sudden smash of a beerbottle out in the street would wake him.
Each time Hiei dragged himself to his feet, he staggered a little bit more, and each time he reached to scrupulously check over his bike, it was harder to focus on details, harder to keep his eyes from sagging as his hands went over the dirt-spattered parts like a blind man fumbles for the world he can’t see. His muscles were sore, and the cotton fabric of his shirt felt clammy underneath the cold stiff leather of his jacket. The denim of his jeans grated against his skin when he moved, and his feet inside his boots were no warmer than the rest of him.
And though he said not a word, there was no silence anywhere to be found. Awake, Hiei’s mind would not stop showing him images of warm steaming meals on heavy red plates, and streak after streak of gray diamondust as each teargem was smashed to dull black glitter across the asphalt; the gleam of red hardwood floors in the dark, morning, and afternoon sun; an ugly twisted scrape on a mirrored black dome; pale fingers gently brushing across the line of his brows in the dark; hour after hour in the distant past spent listening to comfortable pointless chatter; a voice tainted with barely-restrained hysteria, explaining, insisting again and again; the last strained tone of forced-happiness at the end of a fateful phonecall...
Not a moment of rest for the weary. Even in sleep.
Whenever Hiei slept long enough to dream, he was forced to re-live tormenting snatches of time augmented with the cinematic qualities of nightmares. Countless times, Hiei would wake suddenly, and find his hand grasping for a katana he no longer possessed. Then he would heave himself to his feet, swearing scathingly into the damp silence, because even a perfectly-made sword cannot cut dreams; and it could only do him great good to finally kill something, regardless of whether he could eat it or not.
On the third night, when the sun still hadn’t been glimpsed through the iron lid of heavy clouds and mist, every joint and tendon in Hiei’s body ached with cold when he moved. Hiei settled his spine against the heat radiating from Beauty’s tired engine, the smell of exhaust and dirt deep down in his lungs, and was asleep almost before his forehead rested on his crossed arms.
In his dream, he was as far outside his body as he was in it, with things seeming to move sluggishly in front of him; mockingly just beyond his reach, eventhough he never raised an arm to try.
He was standing in the middle of the apartment across from the plump sofa, with the glass edge of the coffee table nearly against his shins. It gave the feeling that if he were to reach out his arm, the sofa would slip backward to stay outside his grasp. And though he didn’t waste a full glance on the floor, the shine of the polished wood seemed warped under his feet. The white walls of the apartment were cut away on his right, so that the half of the room that remained bled directly into the nighttime streets of downtown.
Inside the half-room of the apartment, the sun shone through the skylight in one bright glowing square onto the floor, and the streets outside -barely a few paces from where Hiei glanced along his shoulder- were dark, studded with orange streetlights, and smelled of rain. A pair of petite brown shoes sat just outside the halved room on the damp strip of sidewalk.
“Hiei.”
His head turned at the familiar voice, not at all surprised by Ma-Lyn’s presence inside his dream. She sat in the center of the tan sofa, her long skirt sprayed with rainwater from the street, her low pigtails frizzing behind her neck because of the misty air. She was nervously twisting the hem of her cream-colored sweater with her hands so that the fabric was becoming stretched out of shape.
Hiei remembered that sweater. It was the last thing he had seen her in.
“You believe me ...don’t you?”
Hiei said nothing, glancing down at the light blue folded cellphone near the edge of the glass coffee table.
“I’m not lying... I swear, someone’s following me.... They... they have my number, Hiei, and they call me, all the time, and never say a word. It’s creepy.”
The tiny plastic charm of a white rabbit jerked around on its string as the phone rang; silenced, except for the chattering of plastic against glass.
Hiei had already braced himself for her quiet gasp of fear as the phone rattled steadily closer to the table’s edge.
“Hiei, I’m scared... What do I do....?”
Hiei could hear it, how close she was to tears. The cellphone fell to the floor with a loud clatter, and steadily turned in a circle as it continued to vibrate. He closed his eyes when he heard her sob, trying to shut out the sounds of his dream.
Ma-Lyn’s voice funneled into his ears, each sniffle electronic and sharp, as if the receiver of a phone were embedded into his skull:
“He won’t leave me alone, Hiei... Please, you have to make him go away...
“I’m really scared....
Ma-Lyn’s sniffling breaths crackled inside his ears.
“...Hiei.... ? ”
He remembered how he had answered her, as his own voice crackled gently through his head against his will; “Stop crying now, I’m right here.”
A garbled sniff “....You don’t believe me, do you.”
Hiei kept his eyes shut, and listened as his disembodied voice responded.
“It’s not that.”
“Then why don’t you ever say anything? Why do you act like it’s nothing?”
The length of silence that passed was painfully familiar, and seemed longer and harder with each time Hiei was forced to re-live it. He had been trying to say something that would help her, and even now, what seemed like the hundredth time later, he had nothing he could say.
Hiei listened to the harsh sound of Ma-Lyn snuffling behind her sleeve.
“Hiei...”
“Mm?”
“....Can I stay with you tonight? I don’t feel safe at home.”
“Mmn. Come for dinner.”
“...I’ll pick up some groceries on the way, and cook something when I get there, okay? Ask Kazutaka if there’s anything he wants to eat.”
Another, shorter pause, echoed crisply between Hiei’s ears.
“He’s not here... I don’t know where he went.”
“Oh...”
“Don’t worry about it. Any of it. Understand?”
It was the longest time before the scratched electronic sound of Ma-Lyn’s voice responded. From across the barrier of his dream memory, Hiei could almost hear her struggling with any real belief in the words she spoke. Her answer was poignant, and laced with tired disappointment.
“....Yeah. I guess.”
Hiei listened to the weight of his silence on the end of the line.
“...See you in a while.” The tone of her voice was a forced half-smile, then the biting clatter of a telephone receiver hanging-up stabbed at Hiei’s eardrums.
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16
At Hagiri Kaname’s back was the open street, an empty asphalt space dimly visible in the bluish light of dusk. His red motorcycle rested on its kickstand just inside the mouth of the alleyway, helmet hung awkwardly from one handlebar. Before him, syrupy orange light fell from the dwindling row of streetlamps like dingy spotlights onto the empty pavement. They measured out the length of the alley off into the distance into citrine cones of light and stripes of darkness.
Everything looked deserted, if not the same. Small things had changed; there was less trash scattered on the ground, and one of the lamps had developed a flicker. There was no wisp of malignant energy to lead him here this time, and there was no petite crumpled figure collapsed beside a fat bag of garbage. Nothing to take care of; he was merely a sightseer this time.
Hagiri’s eyes had begun to wander when a voice from the direction of the street hailed him.
“Hagiri. I need to speak with you about something.” Koenma’s tone was businesslike, and he kept his hands tucked into the pockets of the trenchcoat jacket he wore over faded jeans and streetclothes.
A little surprised, Hagiri turned himself to face the former VP of Reikai, “What is it? Something I need to look into?”
“No. From what I’ve heard, you’ve been doing quite a bit of looking.” Koenma’s mouth, unhindered by any kind of pacifier, wore a serious frown and his words were clipped, “Jaganshi Hiei was never part of any investigations I required.”
Hagiri Kaname’s features darkened, “No, he wasn’t. But he might be involved in one of my own.”
Koenma’s frown deepened and his clear brown eyes turned stern, though he said nothing.
“Remember that girl I asked to have relocated a while ago? Jaganshi Hiei may have something to do with her.”
Koenma was quiet for a moment longer, while Hagiri shifted and put his hands firmly inside his pockets.
When nothing more was said, Koenma took an aggressive stance, “So this is justified by your own self-righteous curiosity?” Hagiri’s features tightened into a scowl, which he averted to the brick wall as Koenma spoke accusingly, “Hagiri, when I offered you this position-- even if it was nothing more than a verbal agreement --was that what it was all about for you? Was your only interest to satisfy your own curiosity by snooping through records?”
Hagiri followed Koenma’s cue and allowed for a respectful pause before he spoke on his own behalf.
“Koenma, it’s been years since I was childish enough to act on just my own impulses. At least give me credit for that.”
Koenma’s gaze was sharp and critical from under the fringe of his brown hair, regardless of the earnesty in Hagiri’s voice. However, sensing that there was more, Koenma said nothing.
“When you came to me with your offer a year ago, I wanted the same things you did. I didn’t like Reikai’s blind bureaucracy, and I wanted to see some justice, especially for those too weak to get it for themselves.”
“That doesn’t make you an all-seeing vigilante, Hagiri.” Koenma interrupted.
“I know that,” Hagiri continued calmly, “but that doesn’t make me the next generation of Spirit Detective either.
“Remember who we are, Koenma. We’re not who we used to be. According to the records, I barely exist, and you disappeared. It’s better that those looking out for everyone’s best interest have only limited power like yourself and I, not unlimited power like those tools sitting safely behind desks in Reikai.”
Koenma’s stance seemed a bit more relaxed now, “That’s all well and good, Hagiri, but browsing through unrelated records at your leisure has nothing to do with ‘everyone’s best interest’.”
Hagiri let out a subdued breath of aggravation, “Granted, Koenma. But even rookie cops know better than to ignore possible connections.”
“You’re not a cop.’ Koenma answered shortly, his expression stony.
Hagiri shifted uncomfortably, keeping his hands hidden inside his red leather jacket, and turned slightly away from Koenma's accusing stare. He had nothing to say for himself. As far as Koenma was concerned, he had overstepped his bounds, and abused his position. And he knew it.
Hagiri’s eyes traced the network of cement between the bricks aside from where he knew Koenma stood. Perhaps there was something still left in him of that ruthless crusader he had once been at Sensui’s command. He had thought the years had changed him more. Clearly, he had been too quick to judge himself, Hagiri realized, and allowed a quiet breath of defeat to escape him. The noise was almost inaudible, and quickly overshadowed by the light rustling of paper.
“Hey.” Koenma’s tone was less harsh now, but still retained its sternness, “Kaname.”
Hagiri’s head turned at the sound of his given name.
Koenma stood facing him, expression every bit as businesslike as before, with one hand extending a thin manila file of papers. The tab on the corner of the folder read in neat type: ‘ Jaganshi, Hiei - Probationary Trial ’.
Hagiri Kaname took one hand from his pocket uncertainly and accepted the file as Koenma handed it to him. He looked at the records in his hand, and then up to Koenma’s serious face.
“Listen. I trust you to use your judgment. But next time bring your questions to me.” Koenma’s gaze was level. “Hiei is the last yokai anyone should be just casually ‘looking into’.”
A cold damp breeze fluttered between them, tugging at the hems of Koenma’s trenchcoat, and catching the corners of the papers in Jaganshi Hiei’s file.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Hagiri asked, almost hesitantly.
Koenma took a half-step towards the mouth of the alley, and paused before he turned again to face Hagiri. His gaze was solemn, and drifted absently across the asphalt underfoot before raising to meet Hagiri Kaname’s stare.
“Trust me when I say, you’ve bitten off more than you can chew.” Koenma said quietly.
Koenma held Hagiri’s gaze a moment longer, then without another word, the former VP of Reikai turned and strode past Hagiri’s motorcycle, out onto the nighttime sidewalk. Glancing both ways along the street, Koenma turned right, and disappeared resolutely around the corner out of view.
Hagiri was left standing inside the mouth of the alleyway, holding the records of Jaganshi Hiei’s probation hearing.
A car passed noisily by in the street, throwing sudden bright light over the brick walls, and the red motorcycle, and the blank manila cover of the file-folder lying flat in Hagiri’s hands.
Behind him, the one streetlight flickered, where a little more than a year ago, he had picked up an unconscious girl out of the trash, brought her to his apartment in the next town over and put her on his couch to sleep safely.
The same couch that Hagiri Kaname would sit on for several hours, reading through the file of Jaganshi Hiei, and finally beginning to realize what Koenma had meant.
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(Chapter 17 - coming... eventually)
Japanese Translation notes:
¹ Kazutaka’s new name means “to find”
² Ma-Lyn's surname means “to have something stolen”
³ the restaurant’s name means “the Kitchen Window”
ºMa-Lyn’s new surname means “to look for”
 Mitsukeru Furidomu · Wed Mar 18, 2009 @ 05:58pm · 0 Comments |
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