Disclaimer: I own nothing Yuu Yuu Hakusho related except for about seven tapes of English dubs, seven DVDs, and one wall scroll.

Note: If you thought the last five chapters were Dark and Depressing, you have seen nothing yet. I am going to be seriously flamed for this chapter. Please be creative.

Note: This chapter is much more dialogue than I had in the past chapters and thus much less description.

~Hiei~

His heart.

The proposition had never been offered to him before, by anyone, anywhere, and he didn't know what to say. Much less what to feel.

Instinct overtook him and he felt a surge of regret before he even began speaking.

"I can have your heart, Kurama? Is that all you have to say?" Hiei glared, but not at Kurama. Somehow he couldn't bring himself to look at the kitsune. "I thought you didn't even have a heart, Kurama." Somehow reiterating his partner's name made his words seem more powerful. To his ears, if not the other's. "Is this what you've done now? You see me as a pathetic, weak little demon who just needs something light in his life, to chase away all the darkness that's shadowed me since I was born, and so you're giving me a gift that doesn't exist. Thank you, Kurama. Truly, thank you."

I don't mean it, Kurama. I promise I don't. Please don't hate me. I don't mean it. Please don't hate me. I don't mean it. Please…

*   *   *   *   *

~Kurama~

Kurama looked away as well, unable, even, to see the back of Hiei's head, which was all he was being offered. The youkai's words stung more than he could have imagined, more than probably even Hiei could have thought. He had said he didn't possess a heart, he had offered Hiei a gift he had said didn't exist, and he had seen the youkai as an innocent, almost child-like one who needed a friend.

But the sarcastic retort to what he had felt was a warm and meaningful offer cut deep, and recalled Kurama's past and his life in a new light.

I don't care, I never cared. I have fathered children who have been and will be abandoned because they are unwanted, and no one cares, and they wonder who their father is, but he doesn't care. I was loved, I was revered, I was beautiful, and what now? Now I'm dying, dying, dying behind a perfect mask, too far out of reach to be saved, because I don't care, because I didn't care, because I never cared.

But now, now I care. Now I care. Don't I? I promised myself I would, I promised myself I did, I beat down all the doubt because I didn't want it, but now, now it rears it hideous head. Why? Because I'm guilty? I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know…

I don't care…

"Hiei," he whispered, an eerie calm in his voice, masking something untouchable, too far out of reach to be saved. Masking something evil, wicked, perhaps? Masking something that would not be allowed to come, masking something like hatred. Masking hatred of what, for what? He didn't know, and he didn't care.

"Hiei, I don't love you. I don't love you. Is that what you want to hear? Do you want to reconfirm your worthlessness, to make sure it's all the way it should be, all the way you've shaped your little haven to be? Does everyone hate you there? Is everyone wicked to you? Does everyone love each other, is everyone loved but you?"

Hiei gaped at him with a mixture of shock and stunned hatred, overlaying a ripple of something strange, something like relief. Relief. That was odd. But truthfully, a part of Kurama had expected it.

*   *   *   *   *

~Hiei~

"Kurama…" Hiei's voice was strained and thin.

"Yes?" Kurama answered in a steely calm, hiding his newly reiterated self-loathing and inner torments. The best we he knew to combat such emotions, after all, was to let them engulf him until they took their leave.

"Kurama…you don't know what it's like. You don't know what the title "Forbidden Child" means to me. You don't know how it's branded me with such unwarranted stereotypes by evil creatures out for my blood. You don't know how I've tried to hide it for more than four hundred years. You don't know what it's like to be turned away after thinking that maybe, just maybe, I had found a love I could keep, maybe not forever, but for a little while, anyway, and let take me places I'd never even dreamed of before."

It was true, and Hiei could see Kurama knew it was. Kurama turned to face him. Hiei looked back.

"…You're right, Hiei… Oh, gods, you're right…"

Tears brimmed in Kurama's eyes and he valiantly tried to blink them away, nearly succeeding, except for one lone sparkle trickling down his cheek. Hiei didn't blink.

"I know I am." Blunt, cold, sharp, to the point. Wasting words was meaningless now. Comfort was trivial. Hiei wanted, somehow, to make Kurama feel the pain he felt. But he didn't want the kitsune to break. Just feel the pain.

"I don't know what to say…" Kurama murmured, his voice a bare shiver of sound breaking the air. "I can't feel what you've felt, Hiei, and you know…I almost wish I could…" His voice cracked slightly, and he paused. "It might be easy… Easier than this…"

"What's 'this?'" Hiei asked bitingly. What was worse than his life? What was really worse? Really?

Could anything really be worse than being Forbidden? Scorned by your own kind? A pariah, an outcast, keeping secrets from all of those who might be able to understand you? Not even knowing if anyone can help you? …Does Kurama hoard pain, too?

Am I the only one?

The scent of sakura blew in a light breeze overhead.

"'This'… This is my life…"

"Are you happy, living this? This…life of yours?"

"I…"

"I want you to be happy. Because I love you. Because you're my best friend. Because I care. So I'm asking you, here, please tell me…

"Are you happy?"

"…I… No."

"Then why do you do it?"

"Because I don't know any other way to live…"

Hiei looked at his friend as Kurama turned away.

"I don't know any other way to live, Kurama. Nothing beyond assassinating the meaningless bastards I'm paid to. You…you have another way. You have Minamino Shuuichi. You have his mother. You have another life.

"I don't." A mix of regret, scorn, and hatred for the life he had been forced to lead overcame Hiei as he spoke.

"Neither do I," Kurama replied quietly. "Maybe I should just give up…"

"No," Hiei stated, more of an order than a consolation. "Don't give up, Kurama. Your – Shuuichi's mother needs you. Yukina needs you. Yuusuke needs you. Kuwabara needs you. The Reikai Tantei need you. Reikai needs you. Kurama, I need you. Hell if I deserve you, but I need you all the same."

"You know, Kurama, you told me something once…"

*   *   *   *   *

~Kurama~

You told me something once…

I told a lot of people something, once…

I told you I didn't love you, once…

I don't deserve your love…even if I don't want it… I don't deserve it…

*   *   *   *   *

~Hiei~

"You told me something once, do you remember? 'Real friends won't hurt.' You told me that. You told me something else once, remember? 'I love you as a friend like no other.'

"Which is it, Kurama? Because it can't be both. Fate won't let it be both."

"Hiei –"

"Saying my name won't make it all okay, Kurama. Either you're my friend, or real friends won't hurt. Not both. Never both."

"…But I love you…"

"Stop saying that!" Hiei exploded, standing in a flash, fists clenched at his sides, feet spread slightly in a firm and demanding stance. "I should have left when I had the chance! I should have seen you didn't really love me and left before all this 'feelings' crap came out!"

The wind died down, and the scent of the sakura with it.

Leaves, fallen from their branches in the breeze, settled on the bench, where Hiei had been sitting only moments before. Taking his place. Erasing his presence, carrying any traces of it away, as the wind always did. He was no more than a flicker in the breeze, and even then, the flicker didn't last, and the flicker went unseen.

Hiei was gone.

"But…but I love you…"

The call died as it was carried off on the new wind.

*   *   *   *   *

Chapter inspired and influenced by chapter nine, "The Leaving Song pt2," of Experiencing Technicalities by Kurosaisei. Excellent one-shot by an excellent author. Go read. Now.

NOTE: This story is now completed. Finished. Anti-climatic. Done. Unless I get some really inspiring and really helpful reviews, at least. The last sentence was intended as a variable, and whoever you think, or want to think, said it, you can think that. I actually had Kurama in mind when I wrote it, what with the two different definitions for "love" both out there, but you can choose either person and either definition you want.

NOTE ALSO: I expect to be flamed for this chapter and this fic. I ask that you please be creative and clever, and a few nice reviews would be excellent and really boost my self-confidence, hence, lead me to write other multi-chapter fics. They will not all be depressing and angst-y; that would get kind of repetitive and take away the sense of mystery.