The clouds darkened to a burnished orange glow outside his window, casting checkered shadows over his page. Complicated charts lay out on the other side of his desk. Shuichi Minamono pushed his textbook to the side and glanced out at the fiery storm of color. A houseplant reached for his nearest hand, yet it retreated when Shuichi turned back to his worksheets. Taking out another sheet of clean paper, Shuichi jotted down a few sentences. He flipped the page. Eyes roamed over the page before turning to the next one. His right hand flew across the note page.
Shuichi halted. The plant had succeeded in wrapping an elongated leaf around his arm and another in a pot on the floor had snaked a vine tendril around his ankle. He could feel their slight tugging on his demon green energy. He chuckled.
"Now, now," the demon poked the tenacious leaf with his pen, "what would my brother think if he saw you like that?" Kurama focused on gathering his youki back into himself. The plant shuddered. Leaning down, he pulled at the vine. "Come on, back to your pots," he persuaded. The tendril inched back on itself. With a sliver of a smirk on his face, he pushed both back with a thread of power. "You already have more life in you than most of the other houseplants, too, since you are in my room. Enjoy that and let me deal with fewer questions from my little brother. If you don't..." Kurama let his thin threat trail away as both plants curled back to their normal positions. He picked up his pen again.
An couple hours later, he pulled a curtain back to let in the light of the skylight. His desk was clear of his working materials, the pages in red folder and the biology textbook closed and back with the other book in the shelf on the side. Blue twilight blinked back at him from the night sky and a couple walked past his house. A cat yowled in the distance.
Kurama narrowed his eyes and sent his senses outwards. It took only a moment to register his family's life forces. His mother was with a few of her colleagues on a dinner date. His brother was likewise on an outing. Both of their lines were firm. He smiled. Some of his mother's stress had dissipated too.
"You better behave," he called out to the bromeliad on the top shelf of his library. With a bit of crinkling, the leaf flipped back up. Kurama checked the clock. There was time enough for what he had planned. He closed his eyes, time enough for Shuichi to rest and to free Kurama to do some soul searching.
"Alright," he laughed, pinky tickled by the tip of the tropical plant again. Kurama could feel a few of his other plants stretching out. "Go ahead and do as you wish for now, but I will force you back once more later." The energy of his plants flared.
Kurama narrowed his eyes at the door. It swung shut and one long vine slid over to the knob. It wrapped around the doorknob and inched into the workings of the back of the door too as tiny tendrils. Kurama walked over and pushed. The door didn't budge, completely wrapped by invisible plant life. He sent another thread of youki to reinforce its strength. A final thread dampened the hallway, dimming the awareness of any intruders, wanted or not.
"Remember what I told you," he called out, before taking a seat on his bed. Large ferns spread over his pillow and smaller life littered his blanket. No doubt even his newest project for school was acting up. Kurama bunched his hand in a tangle of vegetation and closed his eyes. Sinking into meditation, he focused on recreating the scene from the dream earlier in that week.
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