Have you ever looked at
him? I mean really looked at him—straight in the eye, without hesitating or
flinching. It¡¯s¡¦strange, to say the least of it.
His eyes¡¦they¡¯re green, true. Leaf green, emerald green, whatever. They¡¯re
green. Enough with it already. There¡¯s plenty of green
eyes in the world, they¡¯re just not as common as brown or black. What really
gets my attention are those little flecks of gold in
them.
I¡¯m not much of a poet—why would I want to be one? But those eyes¡¦
The gold is what always gets my attention. Someone told me once that the eyes
are immediately attracted to yellow, or any other bright color. So it¡¯s not
really surprising, you know, but¡¦
Those flecks, they¡¯re not always there. But if you look at his eyes long
enough, you start to see them. At first, you think it¡¯s your imagination, and
then he blinks (dark red lashes against white, white skin), and it¡¯s gone.
You look again. There¡¯s a question hovering on his lips and confusion on his face
(you¡¯ve been staring too long), and a wild feral look to green-gold eyes hidden
just under that thin layer of color (trapped fox in a cage runs away). He
blinks again, and you only see Shuiichi, a pretty human with red hair and green
eyes.
I can see why all that fan club adores Kurama so much. He¡¯s the boy you take
home to your parents, the sweet, kind, loving boyfriend, and the mysterious,
aloof, A+ student who loves nobody, all wrapped up into a package decorated in
roses of every color. God¡¦
It¡¯s not like I want to be there, in that crowd of girls (and a few guys) vying
for his attention each day. It¡¯s just that it would be nice to say that
I know him, that I like him¡¦you know? But get real—like they¡¯re ever going to
believe that.
They say your eyes are the windows to your soul. ¡®What kind of a soul does
Kurama have, then?¡¯ I wonder.
Because Kurama¡¯s eyes don¡¯t tell you anything, but their silence kind of speaks
for itself. His eyes are old, but they¡¯re young, and he¡¯s a paradox given life.
Heh. Guess I can write poetry.
He never looks at me unless I make him. He doesn¡¯t quite meet my eyes—my chin,
my nose, but never my eyes—and I almost never see those eyes trained on me, his
attention freely given to me. The others, they want his attention too; Koenma,
Kuwabara, even Botan¡¦
He¡¯s a youko. A goddamn youko.
He¡¯s beautiful, he¡¯s clever, he¡¯s kind, and he¡¯s the center of all of our
worlds.
Oh sure—I know the rest of him is beautiful too—just like his eyes, if not
more. His hair—rubies dipped in wine—and his skin—snow, and milk, and vanilla
ice cream—his hands—long, delicate fingers that hold a whip or a pencil with
equal strength¡¦
See? I know that there¡¯s more to him than pretty green-gold eyes. But¡¦they¡¯re
his eyes.
I¡¯ve studied them, when he was nearly dead, outstretched on the ground, during
the Dark Tournament.
His lashes—you think they¡¯re black, but they¡¯re not. They¡¯re a dark red, darker
than his hair, almost black, but not quite. They¡¯re like him—almost demon,
almost human, but not quite belonging to either race.
Me, I¡¯m like that too. Don¡¯t belong to anybody but myself.
If you chase after Kurama too long, you begin to forget. You forget what your
first kiss was like, the first time you ever got that fluttery feeling in the
bottom of your stomach when you held hands with a girl you liked. You forget
the taste of lip gloss that you licked off your lips after that first kiss of
yours. You forget what a mother¡¯s arms feel like, how much you cried when your
dog was run over, and what your mother said to make you stop. You forget¡¦ice
cream, and the way it melts in your mouth, like sugar and light and
happiness and a cool winter¡¯s day all at once.
You forget everything except for a silver, silver fox
with gold, gold eyes, dancing in front of you with his tails streaming behind
him and sly, laughing smile.
I think he knows how he affects the entire team, but he¡¯s too Shuiichi
to do anything with it. Shuiichi has more control over his actions than either
of them realize.
Some people, reading what I¡¯ve written¡¦they might say that I¡¯m gay. I¡¯m not.
I just like Kurama, and his gentle, mocking smiles that his eyes never mirror.
I¡¯ve never been attracted to anyone this strongly before.
Yeah. That¡¯s it. Keep telling yourself that, idiot. It¡¯s not going to make much
of a difference anyway. It¡¯s not like I can change anything.
That was something I learned, you know, ever since Koenma made us part of the
Spirit Detectives. You can¡¯t change fate, and you can¡¯t change anything that¡¯s
already happened, so you just¡¦go with the flow, I guess.
Koenma doesn¡¯t even know what¡¯s happening to him, does he? He tries to get
Kurama to focus those eyes of his on him, but he doesn¡¯t even notice what he¡¯s
doing. I can tell, since I do the same thing all the time.
I think I¡¦I think I love him. L-O-V-E. It¡¯s not something that I ever
thought would happen, though¡¦Keiko? She¡¯s fantastic and all that other
shit. Because I really do care about her, and her white panties and brown
pigtails and big eyes. Koenma knows I¡¯ve demonstrated that enough.
But¡¦what I feel for Kurama, that¡¯s different. It¡¯s like the entire world just
fades away, leaving only him¡¦and me.
I don¡¯t know what the hell-ever I feel for that stupid fox. It¡¯s not like he
cares or anything, and my confession would only be one amongst many. He¡¯s a
heart-breaker, the kind of guy I¡¯ve always hated, because they have everything.
Back to the subject. Kurama¡¯s soul. His eyes, with gold flecks swimming in that
sea of green.
To tell the truth, I don¡¯t think Shuiichi has a soul. The youko,
maybe, but¡¦Shuiichi? No¡¦Kurama¡¯s soul still resides mainly in the youko¡¯s body.
Have you ever been to a church? A Catholic one, I mean. I have, when I was a
short little brat. Atsuko took me there to get baptized—so I suppose that was
before she started drinking.
The windows¡¦they¡¯re pretty, with sunlight shining through them, and colored
patches of light all around you. I couldn¡¯t go play in them, because the old
priest had to pick me up and dunk me in a bathtub scented in roses and sprinkle
it on my head and say that I was ¡®saved.¡¯
Whatever. The point is, those windows¡¦you looked through them, and you could
see yourself, and some woman with a baby or whatever they decided to paint the
windows, and if you squinted, a little bit of what was going on outside. But
they pretty much didn¡¯t show you anything.
Kurama¡¯s eyes are like that. They reflect back your face more than anything
else, and there¡¯s always such a mix of emotions you can¡¯t separate them from
each other. So you don¡¯t try. If you¡¯re smart, that is.
Me, I was never the brightest crayon in the box. Smarter than Kuwabara anyway—I
got a whole 5% higher than him on that one test! And I tried to separate those
feelings that his eyes sometimes flashed with, and I never succeeded, and ended
up being more in ¡®like¡¯ with him than I ever was before.
You can¡¯t figure him out. At first, you think he¡¯s kind and gentle and sweet
and there¡¯s nothing more to him than meets the eye; then you get to know him,
and it¡¯s like being lost and not wanting to find your way out. His eyes are
like a forest green maze, and it¡¯s just¡¦
I¡¯m no good with poetry.
I told him, just to get him to look at me, about my feelings. Described them
all to him while he stood there with a tiny frown on his face and a murky green
in his eyes.
He said that he was sorry. That he couldn¡¯t love me. That we were friends, and
nothing more.
I said that I knew, and that I understood, and I kept my eyes locked on his
delicate butterfly hands, because I couldn¡¯t face his green-gold eyes and look
at the Youko laughing at me and my stupidity.
Kurama looked at me, and kissed me on the lips, and whispered ¡®I¡¯m
sorry, Yuusuke.¡¯
Like I said, Shuiichi has no soul. Because if he did, why would he do that?
Malicious creature that the Youko is, he wouldn¡¯t dare mock me so openly, me,
the son of Raizen.
Shuiichi is human, and I can¡¯t hurt him.
Shuiichi has no soul.