Perceptions

by Mayushii

All copyright materials are property of their respective owners.

A/N: This is just a little something I started a while back. I was working on the next chapter of "Guard" and a certain food-porn-centric giftfic, and this ended up being finished instead. -_-; Rating is for flash-lemons, violence and disturbing imagery in later chapters.

-Love is a many splendored thing-

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I had fallen for someone else.

I won't lie and say that this was beyond my control; I'm not so hopelessly delusional as that. We can choose the objects of our affection. The initial attraction is out of our hands, but we are more than capable of resisting our first impulses. Just as you can keep yourself from punching someone who really deserves it, you can keep yourself from loving someone who isn't worthy.

My problem is that I never tried to resist. I welcomed this love. I became conscious of such feelings only after my rebirth as a human, but they brought me so many good things in such a short period of time. When I would have escaped to Makai as a child, my love for my human mother kept me from going through with my plans. Staying at Shiori's side and playing the part of Shuichi Minamino kept me safe and happy, and so it was for the best that love had held me back. Then, when I faced a prison sentence for stealing the Ankokukyo, my motives were what convinced Koenma to lessen my punishment. He allowed me to work with the Reikai Tantei and make friends. I loved every one of my new friends, and they loved me, helping me grow as a person and doing things for me that no one else ever would. Love certainly had been good to me.

Perhaps love is only so kind when it is directed toward humans.

Thinking about it now, I'm not sure why I was drawn to Hiei. Maybe it was because we were both youkai forced to stay in the human world. I had spent hundreds of years as a youko, but it had been a superficial existence. It was only when I was reborn in Ningenkai that my emotions deepened. Though Hiei denied it and hid behind a mask of apathy, I knew that the humans were affecting him the same way they had affected me. I knew that he was feeling more than he had ever felt, and that it confused and frightened him. In my eyes, we were very much alike. I think that is why I was so set on him.

I wanted to be the person who taught him the joys of emotion. I wanted to make him smile, comfort him when he was upset or scared. I wanted him to trust me with his pain, his fears, his passions… But most of all, I wanted to teach him to embrace that emotion that had brought me such good fortune.

He showed his first hint of true happiness at the Gate of Betrayal. Just after Hiei saved us from the collapsing ceiling, Yusuke patted him on the shoulder and joked with him.

"I knew you'd save us, you punk! You did have me worried though. Hell of an actor—you know, not everyone could pretend to laugh at their dying friends."

Hiei turned away, but I saw a small twitch of his mouth at the word "friend." I shrugged it off, guessing it was an arrogant smirk. Yet it stuck in the back of my mind, bothering me from time to time. Some part of me knew it had been a truly happy smile—the first I had ever seen him give. However reluctant, Hiei had felt his first positive emotions because of Yusuke. I was a little wounded that he hadn't given that smile to me, but it encouraged me at the same time.

Later, when Seiryu killed Byakko, Hiei experienced something else: pity. He felt sympathy for the wounded tiger who, after coming to its comrade for help, was tossed aside like a weapon that had lost its edge. When Hiei grimly stepped forward and cast his black coat over the tiger's severed head, I felt a shiver run down my spine. It was only after Hiei's energy reached visible levels that I realized I was sensing pure vengeance in the air around him. Vengeance—not the mindless need to destroy that consumes so many of our kind, but an anger with cause and with purpose. Watching the hot energy simmering around his body, I thought that it was breathtaking.

The most remarkable of the emotions he showed during that mission surfaced when we stood triumphant at the top of Maze Castle. While Kuwabara frantically tried to resuscitate Yusuke, Hiei turned to me and raised an eyebrow, saying that he didn't understand why Yusuke had sacrificed his life to save Keiko's. There were traces of curiosity and interest mingled with his scorn, and I softly answered that such selfless acts were common in the human world.

"Maybe for a person who's lived there," Hiei scoffed, "but I'd never do it. The challenge is enough without picking up someone else's slack."

But Hiei had been living in Ningenkai for nearly a year now, and looking at his proud, stubborn profile, I thought that he probably understood more than he claimed.

Then came the day when we rescued his sister. I watched from the shadows as Hiei, enraged by the pain his sister had been put through, pummeled the human who had tortured her. Once again he was driven to avenge another's suffering. Yet when the frail little ice maiden begged him not burden her with more images of violence, Hiei bent to her will.

"I won't make you cry," he promised her. "He's too worthless for that."

Then he gave Yukina a smile filled with all the warmth and tenderness I could have imagined. It was so open, so very sweet. I could barely contain my joy at witnessing this small miracle. But once his dear sister left and I revealed my presence, Hiei quickly turned away from me. He told me to stop covering up my spirit energy and coming near him, that it was in poor taste. I could still see his reflection in the observation window as he watched Yukina run to help Kuwabara, but it hurt knowing that he didn't want to share that smile with me.

Hiei tried to guard his feelings, but as he settled in and grew accustomed to being part of a group, his defenses started to slip. He smiled with satisfaction whenever he managed to bait Kuwabara, and once or twice Yusuke even made him laugh. Every time his frowning lips curved upward, every time his brooding voice lightened with laughter, I felt the same pleasure as when a rosebud opens its petals to peer at the world for the first time. But why wouldn't his eyes open up for me? I had known Hiei for months before Yusuke met him, and though we seemed to make good partners, Hiei refused to show me any real emotions. Perhaps he just didn't want a youkai to know that he was being undone by human sentimentality. I did everything I could to get closer, but the harder I tried the more he shut me out. As the months slipped by, my frustration grew.

No matter what I did, he never smiled for me. Not once.

The second chapter should be out next week. Please leave a review. :)