paradiseblossoms | Because we're terrible people (okay, this was mostly my idea).

It's been...a very long time. Kurama's spent most of it working, moving from town to town so that no one at his old job can never run into him, ten years down the line, and wonder why he still looks exactly the same. He's changed his official year of birth more times than he can count (they help, his old skills, as he steals into records rooms and replaces his birth certificate with the most recent forgery), cursed to look perpetually in his mid-twenties while the world moves around him.

His family knows, of course. He had to explain it to them, eventually, and he thinks that were it not for his mother's quiet acceptance, it might have gone much worse than it did. He should have trusted her with the information long ago, he knows now, but better late than never, he supposes.

The occasional visits from Yusuke and Hiei help - they're just about the only people from his past he keeps in contact with, some of the only people who are still alive, actually. Those visits help remind him that he's not just some monster, cursed to live alone forever - and that there's a place waiting for him, in the Makai, whenever he decides to leave the world of humans behind.

It will be soon, he thinks. His brother is grown, married, with his own children - Kurama's not even sure why he's stuck around this long. It's like he's waiting for something, but he has no idea what that something might be.

After, she spends a lot of time on her own. Marcel is gone, but she's had so long to mull over that fact that she's left with little sense of loss. She's numb. She watches as the German regime falls in the aftermath of everything that happened, and of course she's happy, but there's so much in her that's left unfulfilled that she does the only thing she knows how: survive.

Shoshanna has to learn to get along without her theatre first and foremost. She finds a job as a projectionist in another cinema, but it isn't the same. For a long time, she's clumsy, because she gets distracted by all her thoughts. She's depressed, but she soldiers on. She isn't going to be destroyed by her own mind after everything she's gone through.

She grows older, staying unmarried, because to set herself up for more heartbreak seems foolish. Not that she doesn't receive her fair share of offers. Eventually, one of her suitors wears her down and she admits that it would be nice not to work so much, and so she marries a bookseller. They're happy together; childless, but with books to keep them company. She doesn't know that she ever really love him, per se, but he makes for a decent companion, and that's probably good enough.

And then he dies, of a fever, when she's fifty-six. So Shoshanna is stuck running a book shop. It's 1979. She does it, because there's nothing else for her to do, as far as she's concerned. And yet, there's always a thought, nagging in the back of her head. What if? But it's a stupid thought, so she pushes it aside until she retires and sells the bookstore, at sixty-two.

And then she travels. She sells her house, she packs up a few possessions, and she goes all over the world. America, Switzerland, even South America and Morocco and Greece. Eventually, she stops pretending that she hasn't been planning it for years, and she goes to Japan. Her airplane lands in Tokyo, and the little old woman with her thick grey hair deplanes, and steps out the doors of the airport, and catches a taxi to a little restaurant in a quiet part of town, because the sounds and the bustle of the city are a little bit too much for her. To look at her, one wouldn't expect her to be quite as old as she is. She's aged well, skin smoother than one might expect at her age, though the crow's feet near her eyes and the skin of her hands, loose and impossibly soft. The eyes are the same, and the serious expression on her face. She doesn't know what she's expecting; it's foolish to think that in such a huge city, anybody could find anybody, really. But still she sits at her little table by the window with a pot of tea and a cup and a bowl of miso soup.

He must have passed by the restaurant a hundred times on his way home from work, but he's never gone inside - not until tonight. Tonight, as he approaches, his instincts begin to mutter somewhere deep in the back of his mind, and if there's one thing he's learned over the course of his very long existence, it's that when he ignores his instincts, things tend to go badly. He's no Kuwabara, that's for sure (and oh, the thought of his old friend is an ache in his heart that he thinks will never heal), but those whispering voices, those feelings still show up every now and then, and he readjusts his steps without a second thought. It's not as if a bowl of something hot will do him any harm.

When he walks in and is greeted by a waitress who takes him to a small table, he does a quick, automatic scan of the place - his body does it almost without his knowledge whenever he enters a building: marking exits, places for cover, making note of potential threats. His eyes pass right over the woman sitting by the window, because...well, why not? It's been so long that she's passed almost completely from his mind, and he certainly never entertained the thought of what she might look like were they ever to meet again. So she is simply cataloged as another face in the crowd - a bit of an oddity, considering she is noticeably not Japanese, but certainly no one he needs to spare more than a passing thought.

So he sits, and the waitress pours him a cup of tea, which he cradles between his palms while he waits for whatever it is that's supposed to happen.

She's convinced herself so thoroughly that nothing will ever happen, that this is probably the wrong town and the wrong time altogether, that when he does come through the door, it happens to be at a moment that she's studying the guidebook she purchased, finding the phrase to order coffee. The waitress draws near, and Shoshanna orders in very stilted Japanese heavily laced with her native accent. It's just as she finishes ordering that she catches sight of a mane of fiery red hair. She finds herself with a lump in her throat, at once willing that figure to turn around and telling herself it couldn't possibly be...

Shoshanna catches her reflection in the window, and is suddenly very aware of how old she is. How old she feels.

For a long moment, he doesn't. He recognizes the accent, of course, and it triggers that long-faded recollection of what almost seemed like a dream - and a woman whose equal Kurama has never met. The forgotten memories bring a sad smile to his face that sets the waitresses to whispering, but he doesn't notice, because suddenly, it feels like every nerve in his body is screaming at him to pay attention.

He tenses, briefly, because usually what that means is there's an attack coming, but after a few seconds of nothing happening, he slowly uncurls, frowning slightly. His nerves are still singing, but it's...different, somehow. Not the "danger" screams, but something else, something like a heightened sense of awareness.

Slowly, he turns his head, scanning the restaurant again. What has he missed?

The old woman by the window turns back, heart pounding in her chest in a way it hasn't done for decades, and she watches almost in slow-motion as the red-haired figure turns to reveal his face. Then it's her turn to tense up, frail, long-fingered hands curling into fists on the tabletop. He hasn't aged a single day since she saw him last, and to look at him is like looking at something out of a dream. He can't possibly be real, and even knowing what he is doesn't change the fact that it's astonishing to see him in the flesh, just as she left him fifty-some years ago.

She can't seem to make her voice work, can't really do anything but stare, and pray that he sees something of the beautiful girl she once was in her old face.

He almost misses her again, his focus so narrowed that all he's paying attention to are details - the pulse of heartbeats in people's necks, the flex of muscles under their skin: these are the things he's learned to see, over a long existence made up almost entirely of fighting. In fact, it's the surprise that finally draws his attention to her - it makes her pulse flutter in her throat, makes her fingers clench, and in the relative calm of the shop, those things flare like signal fires.

She's not a threat - at least, not obviously - and Kurama's "danger" senses still aren't going off. So there's something else about her, something that's made her react like she has, and slowly, Kurama pulls his focus back to look at her - a long, lingering look that is far beyond the realm of polite interest.

Slowly, he sees it. Slowly, his mind subtracts the years, reforming a picture in his head that he thought was long-forgotten - smoothing out the lines, sharpening the features, bleeding color back into the faded hair. And as it does, his eyes grow wide, because who would have thought this could ever happen? Who would have ever imagined that they could meet again like this?

He swallows, hard, and stands, ignoring the waitresses who flutter around him with concerned questions. He has eyes only for her, just as it used to be, and he is suddenly so aware that he has not aged, that he will forever be young and forced to outlive the people he loves, and he thinks the knowledge has never hurt so much.

Suddenly, he's looking straight at her, and she could swear he sees straight through to her core. She stares back, trying hard to stay composed—it's usually so easy for her, but most things are easier for her to bear than this. He stands, and her throat closes. mouth desperately dry. For the sake of the people surrounding them, she refrains from letting her myriad emotions play across her face, taking a deep breath to try and regulate her pulse. Ignoring the rest of her tea and her soup, she stands, painfully aware of how old she must look.

Despite the fact that she traveled here in hopes of finding him, consciously or not, she has no idea what she should do now. This is silly, she thinks. What did she expect would happen?

She was always - always - so composed, he remembers, and he can see it now, in the way her face remains so carefully smooth. The memories are flooding back now - all of the little things he learned about her in their time together - as he walks slowly across the restaurant to where she is standing by her table.

He bows, low and deep - and that sets the waitresses to muttering again: who is this foreign woman, that he should show her such respect? And when he straightens again, he says, "It's been a long time."

It comes out in Japanese, of course, and the realization makes him laugh. There were no communication problems between them, back then. Still, they've come this far. So he smiles and tries again, in English this time - his English is passable, thanks to his many years working here and there, occasionally needing to translate for foreign customers, with barely a hint of an accent.

"It's been a long time."

As Kurama approaches, Shoshanna can see better how truly little he has changed. Aside from the obvious; his clothing is far different from what he wore during their time in Ukiyo, after all. But he still looks the picture of youth, and she remembers why he was the only man she ever thought to call beautiful. It isn't fair, she thinks selfishly. She's withered and old, yet he's far, far older than she is.

A small smile spreads across her face as he bows to her, though; it brings back that old familiar flutter in her heart, one she hasn't truly felt in fifty years. There's a flicker of something like amusement when he speaks to her in Japanese, and for a moment she's afraid he might not actually know English. They were able to understand each other perfectly way back when, but different rules applied then. So it's with relief that she laughs, quiet, aware of eyes on them from all sides.

"An understatement."

With a confidence that only comes with old age, with surviving a Holocaust and God knows what else, she reaches out and takes his hand in hers, skin soft and loose.

It should be strange, that casual contact - so unfamiliar in the prim and proper Japanese culture - but it isn't. It's warm and familiar and it fills a void in Kurama's heart that he has been achingly aware of for years.

He finds a smile for her, somewhere, and brushes his fingers gently over the delicate bones of her hand.

"I think you may be even more beautiful than I remember," he says, and the words are not just empty flattery. They are some of the truest words he has ever spoken, not just because the years have made her memory fade from his mind, but because there is age and wisdom in her face now that was missing when she was younger.

Her smile widens, and she remembers what it feels like to be touched by someone who really, truly cares for her. Her free hand waves, dismissing the compliment. "Still an excellent liar, I see." It's cheeky, joking, not at all accusatory. She hasn't lost her wry sense of humor after so long.

She's still very aware of the eyes watching them, though most everyone has gone back to doing what they were before, or at least pretended to. She gestures toward the door with a jerk of her chin.

"Perhaps we should..."

With more than a little effort, and quite a bit of surprise, Kurama pulls his attention from her and back to the restaurant, where the carefully averted eyes of the other customers and the waitstaff tell him all he needs to know.

"Yes. Of course," he says, smiling a little at how she still manages to capture all of his attention with seemingly no effort at all. With a small, apologetic bow to the staff, he places a few bills on Shoshanna's table (enough to cover their small checks, plus a bit extra for the inconvenience they have caused, though tipping is not a customary practice in Japan), then offers her an arm to escort her out of the store - just as he would have all those years ago.

In her youth, she might have protested, but to be honest, she's still not sure how Japanese currency works and which bills are which, so she allows him to do so, and takes his arm. Once they're out in the street, she breathes a little easier, because they aren't drawing stares anymore.

But she also finds herself, surprisingly, losing her nerve. What is she even doing? She looks up at him, arm still looped through his, and laughs softly.

"I'm not sure why I came here, to be honest."

He looks down at her and smiles, and it feels like the first real smile he's given anyone in a very long time - fond and warm and honest. He's a little surprised that it's come back so fast, but...he supposes that what he had with Shoshanna doesn't come around every day, either.

"I'm glad you did, though. I never thought I'd see you again."

Shoshanna takes a moment to look around at their surroundings. Tokyo is unlike anything she's ever seen—everything is flashing lights and milling crowds and signs in a language she can't read. Her gaze rests back on Kurama, returning his smile easily. She laughs.

"Nor I. I didn't think I would have a life to live, after I left. But here I am, sixty-five years old...and you haven't changed at all."

She'd be lying if she said that the thought didn't make her sad, but she's had a lot of time to dwell on it.

He places his free hand gently over hers where it rests on his arm, saddened by the thought that she awoke in her home world not only alone, but with the near-certainty that she was destined for death.

He winces a little when she points out his obvious lack of aging - though he doesn't remove his hand from hers. "Yes," he says, a little sheepishly - it seems silly that he should feel guilty for it, but there it is. "I have to admit...I wasn't expecting that. But it hasn't been the gift it might seem at first glance."

His hand over hers is an old comfort, but it hasn't lost its effect after all this time. She doesn't miss that hint of guilt in his tone, his expression—she's as sharp as she ever was, even if her face has softened with age.

"No, I don't imagine it would be. I'm sure it makes things difficult where public record is concerned." She knows all about these difficulties—she'd had to re-establish her true identity after the war, bid Emmanuelle Mimieux goodbye. Though it hadn't been an uncommon problem, the bureaucracy and the post-war mayhem had still been a bitch where paperwork was concerned. "But it is refreshing, to see you looking the same as you did when I left."

"To say the least," he agrees, with a soft laugh. "I've had to falsify my records a number of times, move from place to place to ensure no one sees me after too long."

Her next comment surprises him, though, and he glances curiously at her. "Truly? I wouldn't have expected that to be your reaction."

Resentment was what he expected - or something along those lines. That he has changed so little (at least, outwardly), while she has not. It would, perhaps, be too vain a consideration for her - she always struck him as a fairly practical woman.

"I don't imagine it was all that difficult for you, relatively speaking." She can recall the way he used to sneak into her quarters, traversing rooftops silently and with ease, slinging himself through her window with hardly a sound. She can imagine him employing those same skills in a more bureaucratic sense.

She meets his gaze with a slightly furrowed brow, a bit confused, before she has a chance to think about it. "Of course. After all, what better to recall fond memories?"

She doesn't mention that she'd almost driven herself mad wondering if it had all been a dream. A hallucination. She doesn't mention that seeing him now eases decades upon decades of haunting self-doubt.

He laughs softly, mostly at himself.

"Of course," he says softly, and he thinks to himself - of course she isn't concerned with such inane things as vanity or appearance. Time must have dulled his memories, for him to think so little of her.

He would understand such self-doubt though - understand it well. He's had more than a few such moments himself, where everything seems like it must have been some kind of dream, something he imagined while asleep or unconscious on one of their many missions (which never seem to stop, despite Yusuke no longer being the official Detective for the Spirit World).

Or perhaps he just thinks of those moments like that because it made it easier, over these long years. Easier to think that he'd dreamed up this amazing woman than to remember that he'd lost her, probably for good.

Shoshanna laughs with him, glad to have diffused the strange tension he'd had for a moment. She doesn't want any of this to be uncomfortable, or awkward, for either of them. If this is the last time they ever see each other, she'd prefer it if it were a happy memory.

It's difficult to tear her eyes away from their surroundings, new and unfamiliar as they are, but she does, looking up at Kurama with curiosity in her expression.

"So, tell me. What is it you've done, all these years?"

He shakes his head a little, shrugging helplessly.

"Not much of interest, to be quite honest," he admits. "For a time, I worked with my stepfather's company, until my looks made that impossible. Since then, I've just been moving from job to job, city to city - I can never really afford to stay in one place long enough to put down roots before people begin to get suspicious."

"It's been...lonely," he says, and he's hit with a strong sense of deja vu - because hadn't she always been the one he told everything to, the one who could always make him admit to whatever he was keeping so carefully concealed from everyone else? "And very sad. To know that you will outlive...almost everyone you've ever cared about - it's a horrid burden."

If her arm wasn't looped through his, she'd have crossed her arms. Not in any sort of anger, or resentment, but in a gesture of defense. It's difficult to hear him talk about these things, not least because she knows her own death won't be far away. She'll have a decade, perhaps two, but for someone like Kurama, that may as well be a day, or a week.

"I am...sorry. Nobody should have to bear that burden."

Her voice is soft, but not tentative. She's gotten better with emotion.

He feels the sudden tension run through her body, and glances over at her speculatively. He doesn't know exactly what it's about, but he supposes he's prepared to guess. Time, for him, has become somewhat fluid - sometimes it does seem to move faster than it does for everyone else, but sometimes it seems to crawl interminably. The one thing he's learned, however, is that he can never take a day for granted - not when it is one of the few left for him to spend with the people he loves. That lesson he learned a long time ago, when his body had not yet ceased aging, and his many adventures in the employ of Spirit World had not yet begun.

"Still," he says softly, watching her carefully for a reaction, "I've never quite figured out what hurts more - leaving, or being left behind."

Her fingers, slim and nimble still, tighten around his arm involuntarily, but she look back at him steadily, eyes liquid. She's sad, and there's no other word for it. Before, when they were together, it seemed they could come up with a solution for any obstacle that came their way. But now, there's no way to fix it. She can't turn back the clock, can't make her younger self come here and find him.

"I cannot possibly express the regret I feel, that I waited this long to find you."

He smiles at her, and it's one she will recognize immediately - it's the one he pulls out when there is nothing else left. The one that wavers at the edges, but holds firm through nothing more than the force of his will, of his desire to ease someone else's burden over his own. Because he knows. He knows, as he has known before, that it is hopeless. That this is his curse, his burden to carry, and that he brought it on himself when he first learned to love humans and all of their eccentricities, all those years ago.

He should have gone with them, he thinks sometimes, alone with his thoughts in the dark of night. He should have left this all behind him. But then he thinks of all the things he would have missed - of this, standing here with one last chance to see the woman he met in a dream - and he knows (or perhaps only hopes) that it is all worth it, in the end.

"But you came," he says softly, "which was more than I could ever do. I'm not surprised - you always were the strong one."

Shoshanna pauses, not at all abrupt, because she has a sudden, fervent need to just...look up into Kurama's face and feel the way she did fifty years ago, when she was a girl who had seen too much hurt and he was the only one to help draw some of it out. She has to look up quite a bit more, because she's always been smaller than him, and now age has made the difference even more pronounced, and without hesitating, without a trace of doubt or self-consciousness, she rests her palm on his cheek, just looking, searching his face and finding herself relieved that he really hasn't changed. He's really the same person, the fair-looking youth with something far greater and more powerful lying under the surface.

She sighs.

"Would that I were stronger. Would that I could turn back time and come sooner."

With the same lack of self-consciousness - so strange in one who spent most of his life in a world where physical contact was often relegated to violence, and the rest of it in a world where it is generally frowned upon - he leans into her touch, closing his eyes for a moment but still seeing her there, only young and lovely and so much less wearied by the world.

And then he shakes his head, gently, so as not to dislodge her hand, and opens his eyes to smile at her again.

"No," he says, soft but firm. "Never wish to be anything but what you are. Because you are a treasure - I think more than anyone I have ever known."

Shoshanna returns his smile as best she can, though it's sad around the edges. It's ridiculous; she should be happy she found him, even after all this time. She should be glad for the chance to see his face again, and yet all she can think is that she found him too late.

"Thank you. I wasted far too many years thinking you were something from a dream. I'm certainly not going to waste any more time."

It's funny, the way she's always had a knack for saying what he's thinking.

"It's easier, isn't it? Thinking it was all just...a dream, or a fantasy - something unreal, something fictional - than having to really cope with the idea that it was real, and that the loss was that much harder." He laughs softly, really nothing more than a short exhale. "It was for me."

He doesn't know what happens now. Things are different between them, as much as neither of them wants it to be so, but there's one thing he does know - he doesn't think he could stand to lose her again. So he reaches up with one hand to grasp hers, nodding slightly.

"You're right, as always. You're here now, and there's been plenty of time lost in the meantime. That's enough dwelling on the past, don't you think?

It actually feels good, after all this time, that they still connect on the same level; still thinking a little too similarly for it to be coincidence. She echoes his laugh with a smile, before letting her hand drop from his cheek—though she clasps his hand between hers for another moment longer before turning to start walking again.

"Quite right, ma chere. Always ready with a word of wisdom, aren't you?"

He laughs, perhaps a little self-deprecatingly. This is something that has been pointed out to him in the past, and not always favorably. He can't entirely help it, though - sometimes these little self-important utterances just slip out.

"I try," he says humbly. "And I imagine these long years of existence have got to be worth something, haven't they?"

"I should certainly hope so," she agrees. "I did a lot more living than I had expected." Shoshanna crosses her arms in front of her, likely a very familiar gesture to Kurama, though over time it's evolved from a defensive gesture to more of a thoughtful one.

"I married, you know. We ran a bookshop together in Paris, many years after the war ended."

He turns to smile at her, pleased and open.

"Did you?" he asks, and it's not really disbelief in his voice as much as it is...pleasant surprise, really. He'd known, even all those years ago, that she'd faced a great deal of loss already, had been questioning whether or not she was capable of giving her heart away again. He finds he's glad to know that she could - that she did. "That's wonderful. Really."

"A bookshop, though?" he asks mildly, trying to tread cautiously over what he's not sure is entirely safe ground. "I wouldn't have thought you'd be able to tear yourself away from the theater."

His pleasantry is appreciated, but Shoshanna can't help but snort. "Wonderful enough, I suppose. He was a bit of an idiot, but less of an idiot than the rest." She says it fondly, of course, or fondly enough for Shoshanna. While she may not have married for love, she did have a certain fondness for her late husband, as will happen when you're with someone for long enough.

"Mm." She can sense a caution in his tone, but it's unnecessary. She's had long enough to come to terms with the events of the forties, after all. "Normally, that might be the case, but my cinema burned to the ground. I worked in other cinemas for awhile, as I wasn't able to afford to build or buy a new one, but it was never the same, I'm afraid."

He laughs a little, because how can he not? That tone of her voice is intimately familiar to him - didn't he hear it turned on him more often than not, back then? And it is so very Shoshanna that he can't help but laugh - there is so little change in her, all these years later, and he's a little surprised by how much that means to him.

The smile fades a bit as she continues, but doesn't leave entirely - her tone is comfortable enough to let him know that things are all right, and he's glad for it. Still, he can't quite stop the apology that follows.

"I'm sorry to hear that."

Another shrug, and she revels in the familiarity of his laugh. Ah, it feels good just to soak in memory, instead of rebelling against it like she has for the past fifty-some years. She almost feels young again, and that's something in itself.

"It's not so bad. I've had a long time to get over it, after all." Her brow quirks, and then she adds, "The French government gave me a pretty little medal for my trouble, too." Not that it did her much good, sitting on a shelf, but it was better than being court-martialed for war crimes, or convicted for arson.

"A genuine hero, then," he says, a little teasingly as he glances over at her - although, can he really be surprised? "I can't think of anyone who might have deserved it more."

He wonders why he never heard about her, then - why none of this ever came to light in the news, or elsewhere. He supposes Japan is still very much isolated from the rest of the world (despite any impressions to the contrary), and that unless he'd gone looking for that information, he would likely have never found it. And why go looking for information on someone you weren't even sure ever existed?

"Pah. What I did, I did for my people. I didn't do it for any sort of glory or reward." Really, it was all kept rather quiet--most of the glory went to the members of what was later revealed to be Operation Kino. Really, if she hadn't been plotting to do much the same thing, she'd be offended that the British and Americans had been plotting to blow up her beloved cinema.

"And anyway, that was a very long time ago. Hardly relevant to anyone, I'd think." She shoots Kurama a sidelong smile, sly, quick.

"You know, I find it very difficult to picture you working in an office somewhere." After all, she had seen what he truly was, beneath the skinny redhead he appeared to be. Sometimes she prefers to think of him in his true form, fantastical as it was.

He laughs a little, and shrugs loosely - because she's right, of course. "Blame my step-father for that," he explains. "He decided I should come work for him after high school - that's how it all started. Now it's just…a habit, I suppose. It does serve to pay rent and keep me fed, though," he admits. "Demon-hunting isn't exactly a lucrative business, after all."

Or, not since he started doing it for the Spirit World, at least - if he were still freelancing, or working for the Demon World side of the border patrol, he'd likely be allowed some looting on the side.

"And no matter how often I try to retire from that particular position, it never seems to take," he says wryly, but then shrugs again.

"Still, I suppose one never knows when the balance of power in the Makai is going to shift, and the next ruler might not be quite so concerned with demon-human relations. And, technically," he says, with an almost sheepish grin, "I think I'm still on parole."

She gives him what amounts to a very frank look, taking in his lanky frame--which is deceptive, because she knows for a fact the sort of muscle hiding beneath his clothing, that he's far stronger than he looks at a glance, even in this form.

"No, I suppose it wouldn't be. And I would say I was surprised, but..."

But she definitely isn't.

Suddenly, Shoshanna seems to realize something, and she pauses for a moment mid-stride.

"Forgive me, but I've just remembered--I haven't found a hotel yet. I don't suppose you'd be willing to assist me in finding somewhere suitable?"

"Of course," he says softly, and with a smile, and he holds out his hand for hers.

It's a quieter part of town, but there always seem to be taxis to be had, so Kurama flags one down and helps her into it, closing the door behind her before circling around to the other side and climbing in himself. If the driver finds it curious - this pairing of a young twenty-something Japanese man with an older, foreign woman - well, Kurama hardly thinks it is likely not the strangest thing he's ever seen in the course of his job, and when they reach their destination, Kurama pays him enough extra that he thinks the driver will just...forget all about it.

He takes her to a hotel - not quite American and not quite Japanese, but clean and quiet and with its own certain charm. The floors are wooden, and there's a proper bed (at least, insofar as it's not simply a mattress on the floor, which he thinks she will appreciate), but there's also a small, raised portion of tatami matting, with a low table set in the center. The staff is kind and attentive, and most of them speak English (well enough, anyway), and it's the work of not very long at all for the girl who led them to the room to bow her way back out and shut the door behind her, leaving them alone again.

He turns to her, a questioning look on his face, but he thinks he doesn't need to say much aloud, because - well, because he hardly ever did.

Throughout this all, Shoshanna is quiet--more so than usual, anyway--and she lets Kurama do the talking where there's Japanese to be spoken. She can still remember a few phrases, ones she'd picked up from the ukiyo, but none of that is terribly useful here. And then, almost all too soon, they're being left alone. Taking a moment to decompress, Shoshanna sets her suitcase on the provided luggage stand, removes her jacket and the silk scarf from around her neck, she turns to catch the questioning expression on his face.

"I was tiring of people staring. For all I've heard about the Japanese being polite, I felt an awful lot of eyes on me."

He laughs a little, because he can, and because she's right, of course. But it's a kind sound, as it always has been, not cold or mocking in the slightest.

"Politeness comes in many forms here," he agrees, nodding. "You're hardly likely to actually catch anyone staring, for instance, but that doesn't mean they aren't doing it while your back is turned. And once they get up to a certain age, they're basically given free rein to say whatever they like, and it's considered rude to even mention anything to them."

He shrugs a bit, loose and relaxed. "It's something you get used to, over time."

He should know - his hair is hardly what's considered a normal color here, but it's nothing he can help. He considered dying it black more than a few times when he was younger, just to quiet the whispers his better-than-human hearing always managed to pick up when he was out with his mother - more for her sake than for his, because at that point he could hardly have cared less what any humans thought of him. But she'd always loved it, said if she were braver, or younger, she would dye hers to match, and even now that she's gone, Kurama can't quite bring himself to cover it up.

Because we're terrible people (okay, this was mostly my idea).

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FUCK, I forgot we were doing this, and I'm going to tag it 4 months later because REASONS

WOW I totally forgot about this too ahhhh

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