A/N: Here's the promised sequel to last year's "Black Roses." As before, the story will concentrate on Hiei, but Hiei himself is also the more central character in this one, if that makes sense.

The time is set a few months after the ending of "Black Roses"—at the juncture of spring and summer, when the weather's starting to get more intense and stifling…

Summary: Kuwabara's proposed, and a summer wedding is on the pending. Hiei ruminates on the loss of something unfulfilled, and something more than the weather is weighing down.

Contains (or will contain): angst, language, rumination, sex and mention there of, soap (just you wait and see), ... that's all that I can think of for now.

Humidity
Chapter I
Heat
April 22, 2008

"Did you fall?"

The inquiry jolted Hiei from his doze. Craning his neck, he found a pair of green eyes, offset by slightly frizzed red hair and a face wearing a faint pink flush, peering curiously down at him. "It's hot," he said flatly. And the earth in his friend's flower bed was cool. Offhandedly he added: "Your plants are wilting."

Kurama regarded the bed's other occupants—the fragrant herbs, the various flowers, the red rose bush that he favored, and even a brief glance at its less appealing counterparts on the apartment's face. "It's the weather. Things have a tendency to grow drowsy from it." He allotted a moment's pause, before betraying the slightest of smiles, saying, "If you relocated inside you'd be less prone to someone sneaking up on you."

Scowling, Hiei climbed to his feet and attempted to brush the soil from his naked arms and back. Overall this proved unsuccessful; as the air perspired, so did he, and everything clung. "Shouldn't you be at your mother's or something?" It was past the time his lover usually came home.

"And leave you here, prey to whoever happens by?"

"I wasn't completely asleep," Hiei retorted.

"Of course. Just mostly." His scowl deepened. "Actually, I talked to Kuwabara for a while."

He pretended to be interested in the cicadas nearby so as to conceal his further clouded expression. "About?"

"What do you think?"

It was rhetorical. "I'm taking a shower," he announced.

"Hiei." He looked. Casually Kurama said "I dislike sounding fussy, but your feet…" He rolled his eyes, but waited for the Fox to enter the house ahead of him and provide him with a damp rag.

For a while he just stood under the shower head, letting the water run over and cool him. And then he soaped a washcloth and began to scrub. The suds flowed down and accentuated the drawn parts of his body, remnants of the past winter's waste. Testament to the weight of the weather: most of the time he kept well-covered so as to avoid inquiries about his recent "illness." He had been ill, though not as most of his contemporaries interpreted it. Mukuro of course had witnessed and criticized it, and he suspected that despite superficial indicators, Kurama understood.

'What do you think?' Kurama knew well enough. He had been ill, and he was wary of a prospective relapse.

"Air!" gasped Yusuke almost reverently, holding out his arms as though beckoning it toward him.

"You'd think he's never experienced AC before," Kuwabara muttered.

In the same jovial manner that he had entered the restaurant, the brunette replied, "Fuck you, Kuwabara—you didn't spend the last month in the desert. Can you believe Yomi goes there on retreat? The guy's got all that forest, and he goes to the freakin' desert by my place."

Kurama shrugged. "The desert is open, Yusuke. You can empathize with its convenience for training."

"Yeah, I heard you've been up there with him before. You're both nuts."

Quirking an eyebrow—Hiei had not heard of this desert trip—, the Jaganshi shrugged it off and sipped his iced raspberry-mocha cappuccino, and paid the exchange no mind until Kuwabara scolded their friend with an adamant "Urameshi!" Everything then went oddly quiet. Looking up, he observed the one with a horrified look on his face, the other resembling someone caught in a taboo act, Keiko and Yukina wearing guarded expressions, and Shizuru exchanging an eye roll with Kurama. Understanding the reason for pause now, he snorted and said, "Kurama might have been evaluated, but you're both stupid beyond belief."

"Hey, I was trying to be polite!" Kuwabara defended, nonetheless glancing at the other redhead inquisitively. Kurama smiled and shrugged again—no offense taken. "Anyway," he continued, leaning back in his chair. "We wanted you guys to be here today—"

"Who the hell's 'we'? When are we ordering lunch?"

"I'm trying to say something, Urameshi!"

Hiei rolled his eyes, and stared into his cup. Almost empty. He was going to get a refill when he noticed how Kurama was watching the carrot-top with a curious look on his face. Interested himself now, he shifted in his seat and observed Kuwabara closely. There was an anxiousness in the latter's face and gestures, more than just impatience with Yusuke. To his surprise, it was starting to make him anxious as well.

"I used to think that demons and humans couldn't get along so well," Kuwabara confessed.

'Define "Black Black Club",' Hiei thought darkly.

"But then I got to know some personally, and realized that they can be model citizens" (Kurama raised a bemused eyebrow) "and delinquent bastards" (Hiei snorted) "just like us" (Yusuke chortled). "And we can get along, and even—"

"Spit it out, Little Bro," muttered Shizuru. Several stomachs growled in agreement.

"Fine." Kuwabara raised his eyebrows, spread his hands. Bluntly: "I asked Yukina to marry me."

A piece of ice shot up Hiei's straw and stung the back of his throat. Kurama calmly slid his own water glass toward the coughing Jaganshi. "Congratulations," he told psychic and ice maiden warmly.

"Yeah," Yusuke seconded dryly. "Really. Because no one saw that coming. Can I order now?"

Kuwabara flipped him off, while Keiko informed him, "Hiei's more romantic that you are, Yusuke."

It might have been ironic, but wasn't. Ever since Hiei had thwarted Kurama's suicide attempt, and visited him in the hospital, the word had latched onto him, regardless of his aloofness or his sharp tongue. He wasn't precisely thrilled with the assessment. Narrowing his eyes, he made to throw out something sarcastic, saw Yukina, and decided to keep quiet.

Until he felt a hand on his back. "What are you doing?!" he hissed at Kurama.

Raising an eyebrow, the Fox removed the offending appendage. "Your shoulders tensed up."

"Right. He's so much more romantic than I am."

"Shut up, Detective," muttered the smaller brunette. Rolling his shoulders, he gave his lover a last irritated look, then turned his attention to Yukina and Kuwabara. "… Hn," he finally managed. He'd meant to offer some form of congratulation.

"Uh, I'll take it that that's his form of a blessing," Kuwabara said to his fiancée. Hiei cringed a little inside as the impact of the word sunk in.

Kurama was cooking dinner. The smell pervaded the cracked bathroom door and found its way to Hiei's nostrils as he dried off. His stomach growled. Despite his listlessness, his appetite hadn't gone away like it had during the winter.

After the engagement announcement Kurama had admitted to him that Shiori's remarriage had been a mild stressor for himself at first. But Kurama had misunderstood, sort of. The marriage to be itself didn't upset Hiei, terribly—even he had to (grudgingly) agree with Yusuke. More grudgingly, he acknowledged Kuwabara's feelings for Yukina and the ice maiden's reciprocation.

… How long before the term "ice maiden" was no longer appropriate? Or, was it already—?

There went the appetite. If Kurama asked, he would blame it on the heat.