Kurama sat at his desk, seething with anger as he stared off at nothing, his work lying untouched before him. He wanted desperately to charge off in a fit of blind fury but he held himself in check by some miraculous feat of mental control. No, better to let him come to him and see what happened then. Who knew, he told himself again, it might have been some sort of drug-induced act – he knew of several plants and concoctions with such effects, though he doubted very much that that hussy did. Again he surveyed the events in his mind, looking for any tell-tale signs of coercion or unwillingness but only managing to enrage himself even more.

He had gone to the Makai on a whim, thinking to surprise Hiei while he trained with Mukuro. He had easily found her fortress despite the numerous perception altering traps along the way meant to confuse anyone looking for it. It had been effortless to surpass them and the other wards and traps he encountered. He had briefly entertained ideas of triggering one or two of the wards specifically designed to alert only Mukuro of visitors so she would have fair warning to let Hiei rest from duties, but swiftly decided against it. It was a matter of pride, after all. He was the infamous Yoko and he never triggered warning systems of any kind: purposely or not. Unless they were Hiei's, of course, but even then it was extremely rare. What would happen to his reputation if he started giving advanced warning of his presence all the time? No, it just would never do.

As he slipped between her defenses, Kurama had to wonder at the sheer amount of them. On top of the numerous ones that were permanently affixed about the perimeter there were hundreds, it seemed, that were only temporary and rather fresh. Most were easily pulled down, made in haste and with little attention to detail; though even with this fault they, atop all the others, would have been impossible to overcome for any other person. He vaguely questioned the need for so many warning systems, thinking it a bit paranoid, but quickly brushed it off as just that: a simple-minded woman's paranoia.

When he finally arrived at Hiei's rooms he was a little disappointed to see the little fire demon was not there, though he had expected no different. It was still early evening and Hiei was probably still about his duties or dining. Opting for the former, Kurama decided to follow the copious amount of wards to their source and see if he could discover Hiei's location from Mukuro. The thought occurred to him that the number of wards might be due to a war council or such that the two were holding or perhaps some other such meeting in need of tight monitoring. All the better, he decided. He loved ruining people's defense measures.

At last he found the heart of the ungodly mess and had been a little curious that it had led straight to Mukuro's private quarters. With all of the stealth of the thief and fox he was he had slipped into the room deftly, staying to shadows. He had managed to keep his ki at a completely indiscernable level until now and was about to surprise her with an impish lick of both flesh and energy when he stopped dead; the idea as still born as the movement he had been about to make away from his entrance point. She was most definitely engaged in a far more intimate pastime than he had assumed, but that was not what stopped his movement or his heart for one pivotal moment. A spike of black hair and a glistening white back moved above her in a steady rhythm, but even these it would have been easy to identify his lover. The smell in the room was most distinctly Hiei's; he would know it anywhere. He knew it better than any save his own and the room was suffocating with it, as well as Mukuro's screams and the humid smell of sex.

He had wanted to rush forward, just as he wanted to haul back to the Makai now, rip the two apart and kill one – or both – of them right there in cold blood. But he had restrained himself. Instead, even more quietly than he had entered, he left. Left Hiei, moaning another's name, left the castle, left the entire damn Makai. That had been a week ago and he had continued to fume ever since. Now he just had to wait. Wait for Hiei to come tell him what had happened, what the hell was going on. The longer he waited, the harder it was going to be for the little runt to explain it away. He was just unaware of it. Yet.

Hiei sprinted at top speed towards Kurama's apartment, anxious to see his lover again. It had been months and he was missing the fox terribly; the Makai was rather dull without the red head there to drag him off on some harebrained, but very well planned, theft or other such tomfoolery. He smiled minutely as he saw Kurama's window come into view, the lights still glowing from the inside.

He slowed almost to a halt, smile fading from his face, as he neared the apartment and felt a wall of roiling emotion and immense negative energy that permeated the area crash into him like a wave. He was still a block away, but it was stifling even from here. He moved closer to the apartment slowly, the feeling getting worse the closer he got. By the time he reached Kurama's window he felt as if he had to gasp for breath around the thick emotions that were coming from the little room. This boded badly. Normally heat was something he could easily deal with, but the air around him felt like it was boiling; scalding his skin painfully as it crushed him like lava over a rock, incinerating him as it rippled all around. Tentatively he entered through the slightly ajar window and stayed close to the sill, ready to bolt should the need arise, and he was sure it would. If he had thought outside was bad, it was nothing compared to the choking heat in this room. He visibly gasped for air.

"Kurama?" he called weakly, seeing the tense figure at the desk. Still as stone. He had been expected, it seemed. Very bad indeed.

"Hello, Hiei," Kurama replied evenly, swiveling in his chair a second later, stony smile doing absolutely nothing to veil his feelings. "You're back."

"Yes," Hiei ventured tentatively. He had no idea what the problem could be, but it was obvious he would need to tread softer than soft with the fox.

"How was the Makai?"

"Dull," he replied honestly, though vaguely, "as it has become lately."

"I see."

Hiei, however, did not. Carefully, so as to save whatever proverbial and literal skin he could should an explosion of either nature occur, he ventured on. "Is your mother alright?"

"Yes, she's fine."

Hiei nodded absently, still eyeing the kitsune warily. Not his mother, then. He wondered what else it could be, but Kurama spoke before he had a chance to proffer another question.

"How is Mukuro?"

He felt it. As surely as he breathed, he felt the note that thrummed through the air with the name; screaming of danger and far worse things. The air tightened more as another, stronger wave crashed over him, knocking the air from his lungs.

"She's…fine," he gasped. This game was going to kill him. "Kurama, what is wrong?"

"I made a trip to the Makai about a week ago," Kurama said casually, ignoring his question. His voice was steel lined with carnage and completely contradicted the tone he had said it in. Hiei was not stupid enough to speak and ask what was on the tip of his tongue, opting instead to stay as silent as possible and shrink farther towards the outside. Hopefully Kurama would either forget about him or fail to notice. Neither was his luck.

"Very lively, I thought," the Yoko continued icily, piercing him with a gaze that held death behind a façade of impassiveness.

The pit of his stomach gave out as the realization of what Kurama was saying hit him like a wave of nausea. In some ways it literally was, the emotions emanating from the lithe figure churning his stomach. He knew he had gone pale even before Kurama spoke again.

"I tried to find you," he said, "but you were rather busy partaking in some personal training."

"Kurama, I can…"

"Oh?" the red head looked almost demure. Almost, save for the threat of eminent agony before a gruesome demise that hung about him like a boulder. "Please do. I'm dying to be enlightened."

"I thought you, of all people…"

"Me? Oh no, Hiei, this is about you."

"We were just relieving stress," he sighed exasperatedly.

"Oh is that what it was," Kurama mused softly. "Well, if I had known 'relieving stress' was outside the rules…"

"What rules?" Hiei butted in, unwisely.

"You don't remember?" Kurama blinked at him. "The Rules, Hiei. You made them, I would assume you, of all people, would remember them. But apparently they don't apply to you, now do they?"

Oh shit. Hiei…he had never truly forgotten about the rules, but it had been years ago when he had wanted – needed - some assurances about the relationship they had just been beginning. He had hardly thought about them in years and they had seemed unimportant as of late; now that he knew Kurama was intent on staying with him.

"Kurama, that's…"

"That's what, Hiei?" he asked acidly, all feigned ease gone as he stood and stalked towards the smaller demon. "Silly? Not the same? You were the one who insisted on making rules in the first place, Hiei, and I followed them. Not to humor you, or even because they were there, but because I love you and I had no intention of ever breaking them anyways. It's so enlightening to know that I'm the only one put on a leash, though. They don't apply to you, do they, Hiei? You're free to do whatever you want and I'm to stay behind and wait for you, is that it? How long has this been going on, may I ask? A month? A year? Or does it predate your damn rules altogether?"

Hiei was taken aback. He had never seen Kurama so upset or discomposed before.

"No, Hiei," Kurama hissed, reading his expression as easily as if he had said it aloud. "I'm beyond upset. I'm livid, and composure is by far the last thing on my mind." By now he was towering over Hiei, his hands one either side of him, braced on the window frame, pinning him in. "If I were you," he hissed, bending down so his face was mere centimeters away from Hiei's own, "I would run."

Hiei needed no further prompting, flitting out the window faster than even he thought possible. Kurama had pinned him in, not to keep him from leaving, but to keep his from staying. It hurt as much as it terrified him. Kurama no longer wanted him. He had no desire to talk it over or solve the problem, Hiei realized. Kurama just wanted him gone. He should have thought. Sleeping with Mukuro on occasion had hardly seemed worth mentioning to Kurama because it meant nothing. There were no emotions there, no attachments beyond lord and vassal. He realized now, and far too late, that he had never even considered Kurama's opinion in it all. Now it appeared to be too late to redeem himself. He fled. Fled the city, fled the Ningenkai. But most of all he fled those cold, hate-filled green eyes that still burned in his mind.

Mukuro looked up in shock as Hiei burst into her private study. She had dismissed him not an hour ago to go see his lover in the Ningenkai and had not expected to see him again for at least a month. There was an unusual and, quite frankly, disturbing look in his usually impassive eyes that worried her. She stood to move towards him.

"Hiei, you're back surprisingly early," she said, not bothering to hide the surprise in her voice.

He scooted away from her quickly and she halted immediately, sensing something was very wrong. He eyed her warily, as if not sure about something, but said nothing.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Kurama sent me back," he said, his gruff voice soft and uncertain.

"What? Why?"

"He…found out about us. He was most displeased."

Mukuro snorted. "We're all demons here," she said wryly, "it shouldn't have surprised him that much. I can't see why he would get so worked up about it."

Hiei was very silent for a moment as he stared unseeingly at the floor. "I…made him swear, when we first began, that he wouldn't wile anyone else. I didn't trust him. It…he…"

His lack of words said it all. Kurama had been unerringly faithful to him, never straying or showing any indication of wanting to. And now he had done exactly what he had forbade the other from doing without so much as a second thought. Mukuro knew little about the kitsune and had only met him in passing a handful of times, but even that was enough to know that the proud Yoko would never tolerate such humiliation. He had, to the demon society's view, been leashed, willingly, and had been left stranded by the one he thought he could trust to honor his half of the contract, verbal though it may be.

"So what are you going to do about it?"

Hiei's eyes snapped up to look at her as if he had just remembered she was there. "What?"

"What are you going to do about it," she repeated. "It looks rather obvious that you regret it, and Kurama is far more forgiving now that he has human influences. Surely you don't plan to just leave it at that."

Hiei just stared at her and she huffed out a sigh before returning to her paperwork. "You have a grievance to repay, Hiei," she told him without looking up from the paper she just begun perusing. "You will honor whatever penalty you have to before I'll accept you back into my employ. I will not have it in my kingdom, not from my heir. Now leave."

The shock was too much for Hiei's already tremulous nerves. Mukuro had just expelled him as well, and he had nowhere to go. Mentally he shook himself. What was he thinking? He could easily fend for himself, he had no need for her hospitality. He quickly flitted off, leaving her to her paperwork, and headed for the woods. There was a cave, some fifty kilometers from the edge of Mukuro's borders that Kurama had shown him once. It was one of the kitsune's old dens and it was sparsely furnished; he would stay there for now. He could resort to trees if need be but they were far from comfortable and he would prefer a warm, dry place to brood. He wanted a few days and try to work out his thoughts before he decided what his course of action. His world had just been very neatly turned upside down, and he was discovering that he very much did not like the things he was finding lurking at the bottom of himself.