Hiei had waited for him. Kurama had no doubt about it when he saw the Fire Demon sitting on the low wall - less than four feet-high - that surrounded a small circular and steep terrace that was known as the "belvedere" among the park's frequenters. From its upper side, it was possible to see most of the park, since the terrace had been constructed at the edge of a short elevation of the terrain.

The spot had been carefully chosen. Hiei had sat on the lower side of the wall ring, which could not be seen from those in the park down there, and since the sun was already high in the sky, few people dared to face the long walk up following the treeless rocky path to the belvedere.

That was good. Apparently he was willing to talk.

However, Kurama didn't hurry to meet him. One, because his Youko pride still wasn't too eager to concede that he had missed the moody youkai a lot for those last weeks. Two, because he still thought Hiei was being unreasonable about Yukina's marriage, even if his intervention had proved to be fortuitous and necessary. Three, because Kurama wasn't sure of what he was going to say to fix the whole trouble. And four, because Hiei looked absolutely cute like that, sitting in his habitual position - one knee folded next to his chest, the other dangling free - with his habitual clothes and habitual scowl on his face. Will you be my valentine, Jaganshi?

The redhead doubted it. Not only because Hiei surely understood nothing about Valentine's, but because, even if he did, there should be nothing more ridiculous than Hiei in a Valentine's scenario. Next year, I'll find myself a girlfriend, just for the day, he planned. If Hiei and I are still together, I'll make him promise he'll stay in Makai and leave me alone. He would have one perfect Valentine's in his life, at least.

Kurama wondered if he would ever get to feel completely human, and free to enjoy something so characteristic of humanity as the Valentine's Day. Of course, if he asked Hiei, Kurama knew too well what he was going to hear.

The youkai didn't move a muscle, not even when Kurama reached him and rested a hand on his bent head. "For what it's worth, Hiei, I'm sorry."

The Fire Demon glanced up at his lover, wryly. "I'll say. You couldn't wait to see Yukina married to that oaf. You must be so disappointed."

"C'mon, Hiei, you know what I mean," Kurama protested. "Believe it or not, I'm on your side. But you gotta admit that those two belong together."

Hiei huffed. "Either you're crazy or you just say those things to make me mad."

The Youko ran his fingers among his lover's black and white hair. "What is wrong with you, baby? I know you like Kuwabara-kun. You wouldn't spend so much time in Makai if you didn't know he is here watching over your little sister. You always trusted him with her."

The youkai groaned under his breath. I did, didn't I? "I made a mistake."

"A mistake? Aren't you the one who keeps telling me I should face reality?" Kurama challenged him. "Just look at your sister. See how happy she is when Kuwabara-kun is around."

"She's not so happy now that she knows what he truly wants from her," the Jaganshi muttered.

The redhead chuckled. "What does he want from her that you find so terrible? He wants to be there for her, to protect her, to enjoy her company, to build a life and a family beside her. That's what a human marriage means."

"What about the price?"

"Price?" Kurama mounted the wall, sitting with one leg at each side of it, facing the youkai. "What price? Making love to a man who cares more about her than about himself?"

Hiei grimaced. "Cut the crap, Fox. Leave this romantic masquerade of yours for your ningen friends and suitors. 'Making love', as you called it, has awful consequences. Specially for her."

Kurama, who before was praying for Hiei to come offering him roses, felt now both insulted and embarrassed. "And those awful consequences would be what? Making babies? Oh my, Inari forbid," he groaned sarcastically.

"Inari might not forbid," the youkai shrugged. "But Inari is not the god of the koorime."

Reaching out to pat his arm, Kurama soothed him. "Baby, no one knows better than you what a rubbish the koorime taboos are. I'm sure Yukina feels the same way."

"Does she? Stupid Fox, didn't you see the look on her face when I told her?"

"She was caught by surprise. I guess we have all been stupid in trying to preserve her in a perpetual state of innocence. I admit my part in it, and I already told you I'm sorry. But now that we know what the problem is, we can talk to her, explain..."

Hiei cut him. "Educate her to become a ningen, you mean."

"She decided to stay," the Youko reminded him. "And you told me you were glad with it."

"I thought she would be safe here. I'm not so sure anymore."

Kurama stared at the short demon in bewilderment. There was something odd going on with him, something he couldn't quite grasp yet. In a way, the redhead felt as if he and Hiei were talking about different subjects. "Baby, calm down, okay? You know I don't wanna fight with you. We came a long way until we could put this Makai/Ningenkai issue behind us." He offered his stretched hand, smiling affectionately.

Hiei held the hand, fondling the fingers. Of course, he didn't want to fight either. It was a mystery what still kept that charming Youko beside him, and to be honest, he wasn't going to ask him why. Probably he'd only find ugly words at the end of the question, such as 'charity', 'pity', 'alms' or 'nothing-better-to-do-right-now'. He savored Kurama's company as a priceless token he would have to let go someday, irremediably. With a longing sigh, he nodded.

With a furtive glance around, Kurama made sure they were alone and free from prying eyes before kissing the small hand of his lover. "She's your little sis," he spoke tenderly. "I do understand you being so eager to protect her."

Hiei looked away. "Hn."

"But don't you see?" Kurama asked in a whisper. "There's no threat here. No danger to protect her from."

Hiei's fingers tensed inside the Youko's hold. "How can you say that?"

"What do you want to protect her from? Love?" The redhead winced again at those romantic aspirations he had been feeling for those last days. It made no sense in his life, previous or current one; it didn't fit in his practical goals or his reasonable thinking. Inari, I can barely recognize myself...

Biting his lip, the Fire Demon felt his heart throbbing in his chest. There was something cruel and merciless about Kurama whispering the word 'love' so warmly. It made him think of some ningen little kids he would find now and then in the streets, dirty and in ragged clothes, their noses glued to grocery's shop-windows, staring hungrily at the cakes and candies. "Love is a big mistake," he murmured hoarsely.

A brutal gush of icy water on Kurama's amorous mood. No matter how sweetly he waved the perfumed handkerchief of romance to Hiei, if the youkai decided to call on his bet, he would have to fold. Youko Kurama loves no one. Everybody knew that. Right? "Hiei..."

The short demon pulled Kurama's hand to his lap, cutting him before he had the chance to apologize. Hiei felt pathetic enough already. "Anyway. That's not the point."

The redhead bit his lip, catching the not-so-subtle hint. What was I going to say anyway? 'Sorry, I don't love you'? He knows that too well already. "Then what's the point?"

"The rotten degrading touch."

Kurama blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

"That's how the koorime define coition."

The Youko stared openmouthed at his lover, numbed at his choice of words. At least he didn't say 'fornication'... "I told you, baby. It's just a matter of explaining things to her, calmly, and give her time, all the time she needs. I'm sure Kuwabara-kun will wait. And it's not about turning Yukina-chan into a ningen. It's more like helping her to adjust to the normal world, outside the Glacier."

Hiei held Kurama's hand so tight that it hurt. "I see. So she will learn to accept the degradation as natural."

Kurama was so shocked he forgot all about the pain in his fingers. "Where is this coming from, Hiei? If you were really this puritan about sex I would be one to have noticed it already, don't you think?" Hesitant, yes. Modest, sometimes, in such an adorable way. Maybe even shy, in some crazier nights when his Youko blood seemed to boil under his skin. But puritan? No way.

"That's not the same thing!" Hiei gagged, his mind suddenly captured by fiery sensuous pictures sliding randomly through his memory.

"Oh no? Do you have another name for what we do?" Kurama looked at the blushing little demon before him and imagined if this was how he had looked himself many years ago, when trying to explain to Shiori, "No, Kaasan, it wasn't me who dropped blue ink on the new carpet."

"It's different!" Hiei insisted.

The Youko eyed him mischievously. "You're right, it's different. After all Kuwabara-kun is not a Youko, but a very conservative human. He would never dream about doing to Yukina the kind of sordid stuff we use to do to each other." He wasn't all that sure of that, actually. In his experience, sometimes the right-wingers were the worst.

"He better not," Hiei muttered.

"So it's okay for you, big brother, but it's not okay for her, sweet innocent little sister," Kurama snorted. "For you it's fun, for her it's dirty."

"It's dirty for me too," Hiei asserted.

Kurama blinked, astonished and insulted. "If that's what you think, why do you keep coming to me?" he hissed, untangling his fingers from the youkai's with a harsh move.

Pierced by the fury darting from the redhead's emerald eyes, Hiei flinched. "Fox, I'm not judging you. You follow the Youko customs, but the koorime have to obey theirs. It wouldn't be right for me to be with you, but I can't be dirtier than I already am, can I?"

The anger was swiftly washed away from Kurama's eyes. Taken aback, he suddenly realized he had completely missed the point. That was no 'big brother thing'. "That's how you see yourself?" he asked.

"That's what I am," replied the youkai, visibly confused. "You knew that. I never lied to you about this. Since the very first time you knew you were getting laid with a Forbidden Child." His tone was hesitant, apologetic.

Kurama shook his head, mesmerized. "But I had no idea you actually believe this shit."

The two lovers stood silent for a while trying hard to recognize each other, evaluating the new picture formed around them.

"The koorime are a bunch of xenophobic, self-repressed, presumptuous, demented, prejudiced females," Kurama spat.

Hiei glared a warning. "You're talking about my sister, Fox. And my mother."

"And you?" the Youko challenged.

The youkai blinked. "What?"

"You regret you're not one of them?" Kurama hoped to shake some sense out of the Fire Demon by pointing out his contradictions.

But the next reply dashed any hope. "They should be my people, Fox. They rejected me, not the opposite."

I'm not hearing this, I'm not hearing this... "But what they did to you!" the redhead exclaimed. "They're completely deranged!"

"The same is said about the youkos in many regions of Makai," Hiei sighed. "And if you want to talk about your dear humans, we could discuss the contents of the Dark Chapter..."

The Youko pull back the hair falling over his brow, trying hard to calm down. "But you always said..."

"I'm not defending the koorime, Fox." The short demon embraced his knees, cuddling to himself. "But they are real, their code is real, and the consequences for breaking the code are real. I broke it when I was born, and now..."

"It was not your fault!!!" Kurama shouted. It was so simple! The koorime picked a newborn baby and threw him down a cliff hundreds of miles-high. Hence, the koorime are bad ugly witches, and no one has to ask them why they did it to know that they all should be sentenced to the most agonizing death.

But Kurama easily recognized the human morality, imbued on him by Shiori, signing the authoring of that claim. As a centuries-old Youko, he knew better than jumping to assumptions like that. Life was far more complicated than that, especially in Makai.

"Who cares about fault?" Hiei grinned bitterly. "It was my fate. I broke the code, and for that I lost my entire legacy: name, family, tribe, gods, territory, everything. No rights. The code excludes me. That's why I can be with you now. But Yukina is another matter."

Of course, fate had led him to a new legacy now. Hiei felt both contented and frightened about it. He had to admit that life had been generous and pleasant to him for the last months. He loved fooling around with Kurama, sparring with Yusuke, watching Yukina, and patrolling Mukuro's realms as if they were his own - which was very close to the truth anyway. But still he felt like stepping on quicksand. One wrong move and everything would sink to the depths of the soil, carrying his heart and spirit along.

The image of him, the Forbidden Child of the Glacier, living contented with himself would still strike him as nothing but a distorted caricature of his unspeakable hopes.

"Hiei, you can't possibly be serious about this." Kurama stared incredulous at the younger demon before him.

"Don't take it personally, Fox. It has nothing to do with you."

The Youko got on his feet and stepped away from the wall. "You did it," he hissed. "Oh Inari, you just did it, Hiei! You managed to say the most absurd amount of crap I ever had to listen in all my centuries of life!" He had to keep some distance from the Fire Demon. The idea of hurling him to the ground and slapping his head until the youkai recovered his senses was becoming very attractive.

"Fox..."

"No, please, don't say anything more," Kurama cut him sharply. "My brain can't deal with so much nonsense all at once. Did you hear what you said? Can't you see it has no logic at all?"

Hiei let his shoulders drop and looked sadly into Kurama's eyes, suddenly appearing unbearably old and tired. "I knew you wouldn't understand."

"What do I have to understand?" the redhead snapped. "That you like being with me, but that you also think it's degrading? That it's a rotten, unforgivable thing to do, but hey, who cares? You're a rotten unforgivable bastard anyway."

The Jaganshi cringed at the harsh remarks. "You are taking it personally," he groaned.

"Oh, forgive me," Kurama riposted sarcastically. "It's just that I'm a member of this disgusting race who enjoys the condemnable of acts of coition, as you named it. And in my case, I'm so disgusting that I don't even mind fornicating with the trash of a most enlightened society. Wasn't that what you were saying?"

Hiei flinched. He wasn't expecting to have his words turned around against him like that. "From the koorime's point of view," he hesitated, "yes."

Kurama almost flung over him. He was furious. It wasn't like him to react like that, to be affected like that. It was against everything that was ever said about him, Youko Kurama or Shuuichi Minamino, in any of the three worlds. It denied every word of his legendary reputation, and denied also everything Kurama knew about himself.

But Hiei, like no other, seemed to have a natural gift to infuriate him.

"What about your point of view?" he managed over his wrath.

"Mine?" The youkai blinked, genuinely surprised with the question.

"Yes, yours. Is that how you see me? Is that how you feel when I touch you?"

Hiei shivered from head to toes. "You know how I feel," he whispered.

"No, I don't," Kurama barked. "I don't have a clue of how you feel anymore. Right now I don't even know who you are."

The Fire Demon looked up at his lover in silence, at a loss. He had been so honest with the Youko! He told him he was a Forbidden Child. He told him he had slept with him the first times out of despair and loneliness. He told him later that he had fallen in love with him. What else could he tell Kurama now?

The helpless look in those red eyes hit Kurama like a punch on his chin. He marched back to the wall and grabbed the black fabric of Hiei's cloak right over his shoulder, and moved to the upper side of the belvedere, dragging the startled youkai with him.

"Look at them, little Koorime," he spat, pointing down to the park. "Look at all those people, all those couples walking hand-in-hand. Look at those two under that tree by the lake. See the way they lean on each other. Jeez, that guy is caressing the girl's back! Isn't it disgusting?"

"Fox..."

"Oh my, and what about those over there? They're kissing, Hiei. They're putting their tongues inside each other's mouths. Big exchange of spit and viruses. Don't you wanna puke?"

"This is ridiculous, Kurama."

"Why? Aren't you a Koorime? Then you must be completely nauseated. Just look, I don't think there's a single person in this park who isn't hugging or kissing someone today."

Hiei sighed. "I am not a true Koorime. You know that. And of course everyone is hugging and kissing today. It's Valentine's Day."

Kurama froze openmouthed.

"You knew?" he gasped.

"Of course I knew. I got stranded in this world for years, don't you think I would have learnt something?"

The redhead let go of the cloak, biting his lips. "You knew... but I thought..." He cursed under his breath. It was not the first time he let himself be deluded by Hiei's I-don't-give-a-damn-about-Ningenkai façade. Oh Inari, so he knows I didn't invite him...

"It would be hard to miss it," Hiei snorted. "I mean, every single human grabbing his beloved to hug, kiss, see the sunset hand-in-hand, dance with their bodies glued one to another, and blabber love nonsense. Everyone seems to go crazy..."

Blabber love nonsense? One hour before Kurama was climbing up the walls in despair for not having his boyfriend with him. But now... Is that what he thinks?!

Hiei breathed in deeply and reached out to recapture Kurama's hand in his, trying a smile to melt the Youko's irritation. "Anyway, why do you think I'm here?"

But Kurama was still furious. He had known Hiei for all those years the Fire Demon had been stranded in the human world. He knew him very well. And he knew how to hurt him worst. "I don't know," Kurama said icily. "Why are you here?"

Hiei froze. Completely. His moves, his words, his thoughts, his heart. The message in Kurama's cold eyes was clear: he wasn't welcome.

"I thought..." he whispered. "Aren't we...? ...You wanted me to come," he finally managed.

He knows me well, too, Kurama admitted. But only to himself. "Did I ask you to come?"

Hiei could hear laugh inside his mind. Wild mocking laugh. No hugs, no kisses, no sunset for him.

He stepped back, trying hard to regain some composure. What was I thinking? Valentine's Day was a very sacred rite among ningen. He had long observed the uproar that took the cities in the Great Rite's previous days, when every human would go crazy looking for the right clothes to wear, the best gifts to offer, writing poems, buying flowers, making expensive plans for entertainment...

And finding just the perfect person to spend the sacred date with. I'm just his... affair. A Forbidden Child would never deserve this honor. Hiei bit his lip hard. He should have known. Certainly the Youko's shocked silence when Hiei had confessed his feelings months before were a clear sign of Kurama's limited interest on him. But he had only thought Kurama had been ashamed of asking him to take part in the rites. By what he had seen, all humans had a big problem inviting another to the rites; they gagged, sweated, faltered, some even fainted. Hiei had decided to save the redhead the embarrassment. Fool. Arrogant fool.

"Well, that's a relief, then," Hiei stated. "I was afraid you would want me to go all flattering and sissy just to fuck you. I really wasn't in the mood for that bullshit." And with that, he blurred away.

Kurama almost fell back by the harshness of the reply. Inari, he knows how to insult me too well too.

Of course, the redhead didn't believe any of those harsh words. On the other hand, Hiei had believed his. No matter how close they had got for the last months, Hiei still feared he might not be welcome around the Youko. The young demon had no confidence at all. He had been truly convinced he was the pariah of all worlds, and nothing good could ever come to him, or from him.

"Damned all the koorime!" Kurama moaned. "Even you, Yukina! Why did you hesitate?"

~*~