What's in a Name?

Sachie Yoritomo

Shizuru was at lunch. It was a Wednesday. It was a normal Wednesday. She liked to take her lunch alone, usually at a small restaurant, café, or deli on the edge of the city where she could sit outside and smoke if she darn well felt like it. She always ate at this particular deli on Wednesdays and had for the past 2 months.

She liked it because it was small, and private. It was also near the ocean, and almost directly adjacent to a park, so she could burn off some energy after she finished her sandwich before returning to work. But seven weeks ago she had seen him, also alone, at a restaurant across the street. That's why she comes.

He's not always alone. Sometimes he comes with friends or business associates or someone. She's not really sure. He's not always there, but she comes anyway, just in case. She's never engaged him; just sat and watched. Whenever the thought crossed her mind to walk across the street and begin talking to him, she always wondered what to call him.

Her brother and their friends all called him Kurama. But she knew that academically, professionally, and socially, to his family at least, he was known as Suiichi. She'd never really figured out, in the years of their acquaintance, what he wanted to be called. So she sat, and had her lunch. On the days she felt brave she pondered, but did not act.

Three and a half months into her observations, it was November. It was snowing lightly, but she still ate her lunch outside. On this particular Wednesday, she decided to talk a walk in the park. Her office had decided to close early for the day, and she had no afternoon obligations for the law firm she served as a paralegal for. It wasn't the best job in the history of the universe, but it certainly wasn't the worst and she wasn't complaining. Loudly, at least.

She wandered aimlessly around the park for a long time. She didn't look at her watch to see how long. She was alone, and after a while, she began to think aloud. She thought about when Keiko was ever going to convince Yusuke that settling down wouldn't actually kill him. She wondered where her little brother had gotten the money to buy Yukina an engagement ring, and why the girl had accepted.

"Love must be blind, and crazy. Those two definitely prove it," She said.

She thought about Botan, and how that poor girl really needed somebody to hang out with.

"Her options are kind of limited though. She doesn't see a lot of people. Most of them are dead, and the others are Yusuke, Kazuma, Kurama, Hiei, and Koenma.

"Kazuma and Yusuke are spoken for, and Koenma, I mean, come on! He's her boss. And he's like less than two feet tall. I can't image a physical relationship would work out very well, and Hiei, well…"

"Hiei and Botan have their special place for one another, shall we say?" said a voice to her left.

She jumped at the noise, and looked to see who it was. She recognized the speaker, and said the first thing that came to mind. "Kurama!"

He smiled at her from where he sat calmly on a park bench nearly eight feet from her, legs crossed, and a rose held in his hands.

Her shock wore off after a moment, and she asked him, "Would you rather I called you Suuichi?"

His smile lessened a little, but held. He rose from the bench and walked towards her. "You didn't mention where I stood with Botan just now," he said coyly, rotating the rose between his fingers slowly, his eyes darting between its petals and her eyes.

Shizuru almost missed a beat, but gained control of her tongue just in time. "Well," she said, "I was just about to get there when you interrupted me. And I was going to say that she's probably not your type."

"I see," he said. He handed her the rose and smirked at her playfully. "You may call me whatever you please. It was grand to finally catch up with you, Shizuru. Perhaps we could make a habit of it."

With that, he turned and walked into the snow and back into the city. She knew, in that moment, that he knew that she'd been there all along. Perhaps he'd been coming for the same reasons she had. She smelled the rose as she watched him retreat. 'A rose by any name smells as sweet, Kurama,' she thought.

Author's notes: For the purpose of this Vignette, we're going to pretend that Japan has paralegals. I don't know if they do, and frankly don't have any idea on how to go about finding out. We all like playing pretend, right? I mean, this is fanfiction, after all.

The inspiration for this story came from Shakespeare, who quite possibly never wrote a single piece of original plot ever. Hahaha irony. No, Wednesday is NOT my favorite day of the week. I just happened to pick it.

Please R'n'R. I've got another KxS in the works, and coming soon. Y'all should go check out Dream No More and leave me some reviews to help heal my wounded ego.

~Sachie