It had been a week; Kurama stared just past the teacher, who was taking attendance, and at the black board. Characteristic to all spirit world cases, normal life became pale in comparison. Kurama knew that he should be glad that things were back to -

"Jagashi, Hiei…"

"Present."

Well, as normal as things could get…Kurama glanced back at his friend. Hiei was leaning back in his chair and looking out the window. Kurama heard his name called, and he turned to face the front, while telling the teacher that he was present.

Hiei glanced up the row to where Kurama was sitting; he knew that Kurama had been looking at him after his name was called. Hiei had purposefully avoided looking back, for the same reason why he had not spoken to the fox; he wasn't sure about where they stood anymore. Hiei couldn't decide if they were friends or…something more.

Chapter 17

The bell rang signaling the end of classes; Kurama stood and gathered his things. He glanced back at Hiei, but the raven haired demon had already disappeared. Kurama huffed a short sigh and left the classroom. 'He could at least talk to me…'

Kurama exited the school building and saw Yusuke standing at the entrance waiting for him. He walked over to the young spirit detective wondering why he was there.

"Hello, Yusuke," said Kurama with a small smile.

"Hey," replied Yusuke, "Koenma said he wants to talk to us."

"Well…Hiei isn't here and I have no clue where he went," stated Kurama, sounding a bit surprised that Koenma wanted to speak to them so soon after their encounter with Karasu. The young prince couldn't have another mission for them already, could he?

"Actually, Koenma just wants to speak to you and me," explained Yusuke.

Kurama gave Yusuke a quizzical look, and Yusuke just shrugged. What did the young prince want?

Yusuke and Kurama entered Koenma's office a few minutes later. They weren't surprised to see Koenma in his teenage form; he seemed to be taking it more and more lately. They sat down in the two chairs that were in front of Koenma's desk and waited for him to start talking.

"I thought that you both might want to know that Yomi and Makuro are on our side and are helping to restore order to demon world until the next tournament can be planned. This should take away stress from all of us, and will help you go back to your previously close normal lives," started Koenma sounding rather pleased.

"Well, that's nice. Now Keiko can actually start planning the wedding for after we graduate this year," stated Yusuke trying to pass it off as nothing, but both Kurama and Koenma new the spirit detective was nervous.

"The other thing I wanted to say is to you Kurama. I wanted to apologize for erasing your memories and basically forcing you to go through this whole ordeal. I really had no other choice, but still…after seeing what happened, I feel like I owe you something," stated Koenma.

Kurama gave the prince a slight smile, "Don't worry, Hiei explained everything to me. Including how he threatened to kill you if you didn't do what you could, and that was the only thing you could do. And who knows, maybe if you hadn't erased my memories we wouldn't have been able to defeat Karasu once and for all."

Koenma nodded, "About that, I'm not sure if you wanted to know this but, we figured out how Karasu survived your fight and how even I didn't know that he was still alive. His sister Matsura is a professional necromancer; she brought her brother back to life after I had sentenced him to his punishment in the next life. She told us this after she was captured and told her brother had been killed."

"So did his spirit actually move on this time?" asked Yusuke.

"Yes, I had Ayame escort him, just to make sure," answered Koenma.

"Good…because I don't want to go through that again," stated Yusuke.

"Nor do I," agreed Kurama.

"I wouldn't supposed you would, the members of team Toguro have a way of coming back after being killed once," said Koenma, referring to both the younger and elder Toguro coming back to life in previous cases.

"Don't say that! I don't want anymore of those bastards coming back to life," Yusuke looked around as if Bui would suddenly appear in Koenma's office.

"Don't worry Yusuke, I've already gone through the process to make sure the no more members come back from the other world until they are ready to be reborn," explained Koenma knowing that his last statement had made Yusuke and Kurama slightly nervous, the last thing they needed was a visit from the late Sakyo or Bui.

Yusuke heaved a sigh of relief, "Is there anything else you need to tell us?"

"Actually there is one more thing I want to say," Koenma paused looking at Yusuke then Kurama, "Your firing was supposed to be permanent, but it wasn't. I always wondered why you all came back for that first mission."

"It was because you sounded desperate, and you must have gone through hell with your dad to get us back on the job," stated Yusuke as if there was no question why they had come back. Kurama nodded in agreement, Yusuke had a point, Enma was not happy about bringing Yusuke and his team back to be spirit detectives.

"Yes, well. I'm grateful to you all for coming back when I needed you guys the most. I don't know what would have happened if you all had declined. There is no human that has the skills to be spirit detective at this point, we would have had no way to deal with the demons in human world," said Koenma.

"We will always be here to defend our world, even if you didn't call us back to work," replied Kurama.

"Yeah," agreed Yusuke, "Why would we pass up the chance to kick some ass for a good cause?"

Koenma started to laugh a bit, "You two are one of a kind."

When Kurama arrived at his home lat that night, he noticed that the light in his room was on. He blinked no other lights were on in the house. He thought this was odd, mostly because he had been sure that he had shut off his lamp that morning. Deciding that he must have forgotten and no one noticed it, he entered his house.

Kurama went straight upstairs, his mother and step father had gone out and his younger step-brother had gone to a friend's house for the night, since they had no school the next day. So Kurama had the house all to himself, which was nice, he could enjoy the silence and relax.

He opened the door to his room, and immediately noticed the note lying on his desk. Kurama was surprised and slightly confused; he walked over to his desk and picked up the note. He opened it and read what it said.

Go to the kitchen

Kurama cocked an eyebrow at the note, wondering who could have left it. The handwriting was familiar but he couldn't place it. He set the note back on his desk and shut off his lamp. He left his room, shutting the door behind him, and headed back downstairs to the kitchen.

When he entered the kitchen he didn't notice anything out of the ordinary, right away. After he flipped on the lights he saw the second note, sitting on the counter. He walked over to the counter and picked up the second note, wondering what this treasure hunt of sorts was all about.

Outside

Kurama glanced at the sliding glass door wondering who or what was waiting for him outside.

'Well there is only one way to find out, isn't there?' he thought as he set the note back on the counter.

Following the note's directions he when outside through the sliding glass door that lead to his backyard. He didn't see anything at first, but as he walked further away from his house he saw Hiei leaning against a tree with his eyes closed. Kurama was surprised to see him there.

"Hiei?"

Hiei opened his eyes and looked at Kurama. Taking a breath he walked over to the red head.

Kurama looked confused, "Hiei, what are you doing here?"

"Kurama, there's something I have to tell you," started Hiei slowly, feeling extremely nervous about what he was about to admit. Something he had never been able to tell anyone.

Suddenly, Hiei was forcibly reminded of the dream world that Karasu had created when he had gone to save Kurama. This meeting reminded him a lot of the meeting he had had with 'Dream Suichi.' It would be the same except the roles were to be reversed, if Hiei could say what he wanted to say.

"What do y-" Kurama stopped when he noticed what was in Hiei's right hand, it was a rose. 'Is he?'

"I'm not sure how to start," admitted Hiei quietly, fingering the rose in his hand, "but I have to say this." He handed the rose to Kurama.

It was then that the red head noticed that the rose was not real; it was made out of crystal. Kurama was positive of what Hiei was trying to tell him.

"Kurama, I -" Hiei was cut off as Kurama captured his lips with a passionate kiss.

"I know," murmured Kurama, "I love you, too."

Je suis consacré à toi seulement, mon aimé

A/N: So that's it...That's the end...Goodbye, go away...J/K...So I don't know how much you'll like this ending. I was trying to stay away from clichéd endings, and I don't really know how clichéd this one is. Hopefully, you'll like it and you'll think it did the story justice. I know we've gone through some dry spells and some revamping of old chapters to get here and I just want to say thank you to all who continued to read this story from the very beginning and a thank you to all who just decided to read it now that I've finished...Please review, I would love to know what you think. Oh, by the way...if you want to know what language that italicized text it above this it's French, translate it on Google if you want. Goodbye, and a great many thanks! I'll see you next time...