Ikigai (Hiei x OC)

THE SNOWSTORM

It was midnight on the twentieth of December, and Airi found herself unable to sleep. In twenty-four hours, they would be leaving behind everything she knew in favor of something dangerous and unpredictable. That short trip to Makai on the eve of their battle with Sensui was jarring – its landscape had been haunting her dreams ever since.

But it was Hiei's home. He felt as out of place in her world as she did in his, and he'd made it clear that he was willing to stay as long as she wanted. He deserved the same from her.

Lifting her head from his chest, she gave up on any hope of sleep that night. She rolled out of his arms and went to climb onto the windowsill. What she saw had her slapping a hand over her mouth to stifle a gasp.

Everything was buried beneath a thick blanket of snow. Huge, fluffy snowflakes were pouring steadily out of the sky. Moving as quietly as her excitement would allow, she snatched Hiei's cloak off the back of his desk chair, threw it over her shoulders, and tiptoed out of the room.

The front steps were the perfect place to enjoy the storm, with its thick overhang holding the snow at bay. Its stone landing was freezing to the touch, however, and as she watched the drifts swirl across the landscape, she quickly lost feeling in her bottom.

Breathing, and thinking, was easier there. Something about that winter white, and the crisp, fresh air reminded her of new beginnings. How fitting.

She wondered if there were any places in Makai that experienced snow, other than Hiei and Yukina's birthplace. As her thoughts wandered, her hands moved mindlessly, almost subconsciously. Only when she'd created her own accidental, sparkling twister did she come back to the present. It had never occurred to her that she could manipulate snow, and it felt horrendously unfair that she wouldn't get to play with it.

"Someday you will. I promise."

So, her wards had fallen. His hand on the top of her head made everything right again.

"Did I wake you up?" she asked, feeling guilty..

"Don't worry about it." He exhaled, deep and heavy and full of the weight of his past. "Come on."

Pulling her up by the elbow, he brought her around the side of the building to her favorite garden. It was barely recognizable now, the perfectly trimmed hedges transformed into some kind of magical frozen marshmallows.

He was shirtless, and as the snowflakes hit his skin, they didn't just turn to water. They evaporated.

"How?" she asked, mesmerized.

"It's difficult to explain."

She touched him, expecting a shock akin to sticking her hand in boiling water, but he felt no warmer than usual.

In response to the subtle shaking of her head, he threw her a self-conscious, "What?"

"You're just... amazing. I dunno. We spend so much time together, sometimes I forget."

His expression drew tight, and she realized how it sounded. Not at all how she'd meant it.

"Oh, Hiei. I didn't – "

The sentence tapered off as a small smile crept onto his face. For him, it may as well have been a full-fledged grin. Her chuckle turned into a strained grunt as he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her to the ground with him.

"Could have given me a warning," she teased, grateful that he seemed to be in such a playful mood. It had been ages since she'd seen him this way.

He ignored her, and that was fine, because she was already floating in the sedating effects of his body heat. Snow was falling even faster, now, and without his strange knack for evaporation, she was quickly becoming damp.