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

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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