Dedicated, with much love and many prayers, to Poison Giullia. May life yet bring you the warmth and happiness you deserve.

'Love.'

Such a small word, yet so difficult to define.

It's a frightening thing to contemplate. Particularly for someone like me. All my life, I've been alone, unwanted, shunned.

Cold.

I may be a fire youkai, but no warmth ever touched my . . . heart, for lack of a better word. Soul, perhaps. Whatever, it was always encased in ice colder than any my Koorime "kin" have ever encountered. Cold that even Kokoryuuha's fire couldn't penetrate.

Oh, I cared for my sister. In the remote sort of way one cares for one's clothing or equipment. It was a duty. It was something I had to do because I was responsible for her leaving the Floating Island. She was looking for me, after all, and it was somehow wrong to let her be in danger because of that.

Then, abruptly, everything changed. I met Kurama, then Yuusuke and that fool Kuwabara. We became team-mates, comrades in arms. Allies.

Friends.

I slowly discovered a warmth that was melting the ice around my soul. It wasn't immediate and fiery, but insidious and creeping. It worked its way in gradually until there was no stopping it. It seeped through cracks I didn't even know existed. It terrified me.

How can someone who has never known such feelings understand them? It's all the more frightening to realize you need it, soak it up and yearn for more. I tried to run from it, to hide, but there was no escaping it.

Love.

Not the way these damned ningen mean it. Not passion, not lust or desire. I have no wish to marry or even sleep with any of them. On the contrary, the very idea of it makes me want to retch. Particularly applied to the Fool.

But if I should ever loose them . . . any of them . . .

I think I might die. It terrified me--it still terrifies me--to think that. To think that I've come to be so dependent on anyone. It's a loss of my freedom, a weapon the could be used against me.

It's warmth that chases away the cold.

The cold terrifies me now, more than the warmth ever did. Like heated glass placed into a freezing stream, I think I would break and shatter if the cold returned. Yet I still can't bring myself to fully accept the warmth, to make it part of me.

Perhaps when I am able to find the strength to tell Yukina that I'm her brother I'll be able to accept it. Maybe she could teach me--I know she feels it, despite being Koorime. How else could she be so happy all the time? But I'm still too much of a coward, too afraid of being weakened to tell her.

I'm certain Kurama could teach me, save that I know him too well. Between the all-too-powerful youko sex drive and the overactive hormones of his adolescent ningen body, I'm sure he would misunderstand. Whether he'd be interested or repulsed, I'm not so sure of, nor is it relevant; I'm not interested in sex.

Yuusuke and the Fool wouldn't even understand what I was talking about--assuming I were stupid enough to try to talk to either of them. Though it's obvious they love each other like brothers, neither of them are comfortable enough with the word to admit it to themselves, much less to anyone else. I can understand that; neither am I.

No, I'll have to learn this alone. It's the greatest challenge I've ever faced. But I am confident I won't loose. The ice around my soul is nearly gone; my friends have melted it almost completely away.

Soon, I'll be able to return the warmth.