Two Trains Leaving Boston by scheherezhad
Rating: PG
Summary: Not all endings are picture perfect.
Disclaimer: Don't own, not making money, please don't sue.
Author's notes: I'd actually had vague notions for this bunny for well over a year, now. Then, for some reason, something about it just...clicked in my head this morning and made me write all day. And it's Keiko p.o.v. Weird.
Feedback: Hells yeah. scheherezhad@yahoo.com
It wasn't that Keiko didn't like Kurama. Really, she was fond of him because he was charming and always polite, and he was quite handsome. He always sent flowers and a card on her birthday. He'd even come to help them paint and move when she and Yusuke had bought their first house.
What she hated was when Kurama came to visit Yusuke.
She sometimes thought that she should be used to it after ten years, but the rest of the time she thought she shouldn't have to get used to it because it wasn't right. He only came to the house twice a year, three times if Keiko threw the group Christmas party.
Every time he came, Yusuke smiled for days. He cleaned the house and made reservations for dinner at a nice restaurant and bought a bottle of Kurama's favorite wine. If Kurama was visiting for the whole day, he made plans to go out and do things he never would have voluntarily done with Keiko. He listened intently when Kurama talked and gravitated into his personal space.
Keiko was never excluded, but she was always left out.
Things came to a head for her at the next Christmas party. Yusuke found a mistletoe headband and wore it all day long, surprising her with kisses while they cooked and cleaned and decorated. He answered the first ring of the doorbell with the silly thing still on, and Keiko smiled to herself. When she stepped out of the kitchen to see who had arrived, though, she found herself blinking back tears. Yusuke and Kurama stood in the doorway, intimately close, and Kurama leaned in to press a light kiss to Yusuke's cheek.
They noticed her a second later. Her mother had always taught her not to cause a public scene over a private matter, so Keiko forced a smile and a little laugh, took the headband from Yusuke, and offered to take Kurama's coat. Then she went and cried in the bathroom for ten minutes.
On Kurama's next visit, she watched them closely. They didn't act any differently than they always had, but for the first time, Keiko felt coldly analytical about it. She was numb to the hurt and jealousy she'd always felt around them, and she really noticed how they fit together. It seemed frighteningly right.
When Kurama left late that night, Keiko found herself in the kitchen, rewashing a stack of clean dishes.
"Hey, is something bothering you?" Yusuke asked.
"No, I'm-yes. Yes, something is bothering me, Yusuke." She put down the dishrag and turned to face him. "What do you think it is?"
"I think...maybe I sort of ignored you all night. Is that it?"
"Maybe."
Yusuke sighed. "Geez. It's just, I don't get to see Kurama a lot, but I see you every day. You know? He's my best friend besides Kuwabara."
"I thought I was your best friend," she countered, hating the petulant tone of it.
"Well, you're my wife. It's not the same."
He wasn't being deliberately hurtful, she knew. He was just being honest in his oblivious, Yusuke way.
"Keiko, what is this really about?"
"It's about you and me and Kurama, Yusuke. It's about how you forget I'm there when he's around. How you do things for him and you do things with him that you'd never do if it were me," she said. Now that she'd gotten started, the words felt like they were pouring out. "You know all of his favorite things, but you still have to ask me what I want on a pizza or if I like red or purple better. You've never questioned him. He's the first person you go to for advice. You listen to him like everything he says is important, and he never has to ask more than twice for anything, no matter how much you don't want to do it. He...he kissed you! How much more do I have to say?"
Yusuke stared hard at the wall. "Keiko. Jesus," he said after a few minutes. "I didn't realize-"
"No, you didn't." She swallowed, dug her nails into her palms. Then, so quietly that even she almost wasn't sure she was saying anything, "I think maybe we should get a divorce."
"What? Keiko, I love you."
"And I love you. But you love Kurama, too. I think you love Kurama more. Don't you?"
"I...I don't know what it is, okay? It's different than the way I feel about you. It's different than the way I feel about anybody else," he said softly. He reached out, grabbed her by the shoulders. "We can work something out."
"No. I couldn't see it before, but I can now." She stepped back, slipping out of his grasp. "You can't just quit feeling whatever it is that you feel for him, and I can't quit being hurt by it. And now that we both know, we can't pretend things are the same. I think we'd be better off apart."
They both remained silent for a long time, avoiding looking at one another. Finally, Keiko turned to go upstairs.
"It wasn't even a real kiss," he said.
She didn't turn back around. "But you felt something real when it happened. I saw the look on your face. You used to look like that when you kissed me." She rested her hand briefly on the doorframe. "I'll bring you down a pillow and a blanket so you can sleep on the couch."
The divorce was quick and mostly quiet, though nowhere close to painless. Keiko was glad that they hadn't had any children. Yusuke disappeared to Demon World for a long time afterward.
It was fifteen years before she saw him again. They ran into each other near the park on a cool September evening. She had remarried, had a son. Her hair was starting to turn gray.
He still looked like a teenager. Kurama was with him, and he looked older, but she knew that it was a show, that he only aged for the benefit his family. They looked like a cliché gay couple, the older, experienced man with his young boy toy. The idea wasn't entirely untrue.
"Hey, Keiko," Yusuke said awkwardly.
"Keiko," Kurama murmured.
"Hello, Yusuke. Kurama." She clutched her purse strap tightly. "It's...nice to see you both."
Yusuke nodded. "Good to see you, too. We, uh, we heard about your family. Congratulations, I guess."
"Thanks, I guess."
The three of them smiled a little at that.
Part of her wanted to ask if they were happy, but she thought she didn't want to know the answer, no matter what it was. Instead, she said, "I should go. My train will be here soon."
Yusuke cleared his throat. "Yeah. We were gonna catch a movie. So...see you around."
"Goodbye, Keiko."
"Bye, guys."
Yusuke looked like he wanted to hug her, but he took Kurama's hand, and they started walking again.
She didn't imagine they would meet again, but there had been no closure, no definition to their encounter. If she were in a movie, they'd have said something profound and final. She'd be walking away with a little smile, maybe a sad one, and she would know that everything had come out perfectly in a way that was bigger than all of them.
Keiko started for the train station, feeling vaguely unsatisfied.
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