Warnings, disclaimers, readers going "wtf?" and hopefully "oh cool".
A/N's -
- More explorations of not-so-fluffy Yukina.
Frostbite
It was no longer 'Genkai's', and indeed had not been for decades. Nor was it Kuwabara's, despite the nameplate now next to the stone column at street level. Both had passed through Koenma's gates years ago, their tomb markers slowly turning green with moss that even the hardest equinox scrubbings couldn't kill. Kurama's touch, that.
Kuwabara Yukina was the last of kin, the temple's sole priestess and the final holdout against Tokyo's urban sprawl. Despite being the matriarch of the Kuwabara clan, which had multiplied through adopted humans and halfbreeds alike, she still didn't look a day over twenty.
As for her home, the temple itself didn't look a day past 1868, save for three rooms scattered throughout the complex. The arcade from Yuusuke's testing days remained, still filled with rarely-used game machines that measured reiki. The kitchen, though not the bath, had all the necessary appliances and the only televisions on the property, painted on the walls and hidden in the countertops.
She'd splurged on the rice-paper screen that divided the bedroom at the far end of the hall from its fellows, replacing it with a laserpixel television version that reverted to a shoji pattern when the power was off. It was the least she could do.
-0-0-0
"You think I like picking the bones of my friends from their ashes?" she'd screamed. "My children, my husband, my mentors?" She threw a vase into the wall behind Kurama, shards tearing the rice paper and falling into his whitening hair. "Get out! Get out and don't come back until you can remember to just ask instead of manipulate!"
Kurama ducked into the garden, stuffing his feet into his shoes. "You will, then?"
"It will save at least you, you stupid stupid fox! Yes! Get out!"
When the rice-paper door slammed shut and the running footsteps faded, Yukina let herself crumple to the floor, face in her hands. Gems tinkled through her fingers and onto her black mourning kimono.
"Kazuma..."
-0-0-0
It was a rare decade that the private wing of the temple wasn't packed to bursting with children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren -- the first of this generation were in America and Russia, the youngest born abroad as their parents administered aid to the stricken nations.
Yukina approved of the unorthodox travels from a distance, writing long letters of her girlhood travels to the eldest -- the boy was reaching that age where nobody over the age of twelve had ever been young or done neat things, and girls most of all. She recieved voice transcripts back, mostly consisting of 'but you didn't really, Obaasama!"
Another of those letters lay unopened upon the tea tray she was carrying to the farthest bedroom. She and Kurama had long since passed the point where manners required them to interact to keep each other company, and it was lunchtime.
She knocked gently on the frame holding the hall screen, balancing the tray on one hand.
"Come in!"
Sliding the screen open, she stepped into the room. "Is this a bad time?" she asked habitually.
Kurama smiled. "You know it never is. Please." He gestured to his side table, and she set the tray down next to his softly-beeping heart monitor. "May I?" he asked, fingers not quite touching the folded letter.
Yukina nodded. She'd get to read it later, anyway.
-0-0-0
It was probably a healthy survival instinct rather than curiosity that kept Yukina's newest daughter silent and sober on Kurama's lap. For all that Kurama was handling the child as if she were made of eggshell-thin porcelain and valuable gems... no, even more gently than his usual approach to priceless baubles... Yukina knew the baby was demon enough to recognize the bigger predator when she spotted one.
Yukina set out tea, well out of the child's reach, and took her daughter back. The baby, much to Yukina's relief, stayed silent as she caught Yukina's hair and shirt in a death grip, huge eyes pinned to Kurama.
Poor baby. She'd have to overcome that if she was ever going to avoid breaking her uncle's heart. "How did your omiai go?" Yukina asked Kurama.
"Fine," Kurama answered flatly. "She was very nice. Pretty."
What was that tone? "You don't sound too pleased."
"Just a bit tired of this," Kurama murmured. He paused, then explained, "School was interesting, and the novelty still hasn't worn off 'gainful employment'. But Kaasan can arrange for me to meet as many prospective brides as she likes; I doubt there's one worth the bureaucratic nightmare it would take to marry any."
Yukina raised an eyebrow. She knew her wedding had been several years of getting visas and checking life files and Kazuma making a pest of himself in Koenma's offices on a weekly basis (and then a daily basis after both she and Kazuma flatly refused to be sterilized), but human marriages needed little more than a pinprick blood test and a couple hours' wait, legally speaking. "Pardon me for saying this, but aren't you essentially human?"
"Biologically, genetically, not legally." Kurama turned a rueful smile on her. "They changed that before putting me on trial for the Mirror."
"But... you're aging. Doesn't that mean...?"
"Yes. Nevertheless, I'm not legally human, despite it all."
-0-0-0
Another imp brought the yearly update, that there were no new developments in Makai in successfully extending the human lifespan. Not that there were many devoted to that research in the first place.
When Yukina told Kurama, he rolled his eyes. "What is there for an old man in Makai?" he grumbled. "A quick fight and a long sword, that's what. The imp can tell his idiot master to throw out his chemical pods and just visit once in a while."
Yukina couldn't help but giggle as she told the imp to repeat that verbatim. Too bad she couldn't send a camera along with it. The expression on Hiei's face was sure to be priceless.
-0-0-0
"He's going to break your heart, you know."
Yukina turned to face the dark figure in the window. The years hadn't changed Hiei much. He'd exchanged his makeshift bandages for a black fingerless glove, and a thin slice scarred his left cheek.
She didn't bother asking which 'he' her brother meant. Kurama was currently in the guest room, unpacking his things. "Nobody cares what demons do to each other," she told Hiei, a bit more flatly than was polite. "You taught me that."
Hiei's eyes widened faintly.
"I love you dearly," Yukina hastened to add, "but I'm rather annoyed with you right now." Understatement. The room's temperature really wasn't supposed to be quite this low. "Kazuma considered you a friend, not that either of you would admit it, and you threw away far too many of the few years you could have had. And now you're doing the same to Kurama-san." Hiei looked away. "Coward," she bit out.
He flickered and vanished from sight. Yukina ran to the window, leaning out just far enough to shout, "If you don't come back soon, I won't forgive you!"
-0-0-0
The monitors had multiplied over the past few months, and the farthest bedroom had taken on the too-familiar scent of medicine and death. Botan would be coming soon, this time to make sure Kurama got to the afterlife, though the ferrygirl had hinted that he wasn't due til next week.
"Is this a bad time?" Yukina asked, nearly whispering in the dim light.
"You know it never is," Kurama replied.
Yukina ghosted into the room, picking her way past wiring to find the chair next to the bed. "It might be, this time," she told him as she sat down in it. "If you want."
Kurama's eyes glittered behind his glasses. "So. It's now."
"I did promise. And there's not much time left before you start losing tails," Yukina explained, taking his hand. "I thought you would want them all."
"You thought right." His hand tightened on hers. "May I have a request?"
"I'll kick Hiei if he doesn't visit?" Yukina guessed.
"Mindreader," Kurama accused, laughter in his eyes. "Thank you."
Yukina's fingers brushed against his chest. "Don't thank me. Just..." The barest touch of skin on skin, and Kurama's heart froze solid. "Run."