It's been a long time since I last wrote a Yu Yu Hakusho fanfiction. Hopefully this doesn't suck. Ha ha… :sweat drop:

Summary: Yusuke Urameshi lives a normal life. He skips school, beats up any punk who thinks they can take him on (namely Kuwabara), and he has Keiko nagging him as usual. Yup, he's living the dream... So why does it feel like this isn't the dream he's meant to live?

Time Period: During the two months before the Dark Tournament.

Disclaimer: Yu Yu Hakusho belongs to Yoshihiro Togashi. Mind Crush is only borrowing it for her amusement.

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"Living the Dream"
Prologue: Waking Up

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He was only aware of two things: one, his head hurt like hell, and two, everything was black. The fact that he tried to remember what happened only made the pain in his head worsen, which pissed him off even more. And would someone turn on the Goddamn lights already? This isn't the Dark Ages! Cripes, all this angry thinking wasn't helping his current situation. What was his current situation you ask? Well even he didn't have a fucking clue.

So there he was, floating around in a black, never-ending void. He'd have to end up somewhere eventually. Of course not being the brightest person in the world, he didn't make the connection that never-ending usually meant never ending.

Just when he became bored of the aimless drifting, he heard voices from within the darkness. Were they calling for him? There were two of them. Both sounded female. Why were they familiar?

"Yusuke!"

"I think he's starting to wake up!"

"Oh Yusuke…"

That's right… The voices belonged to Keiko and his mother. How could he forget the sounds of their voices after all the naggings he received (one nagging him to go to school, and one nagging him to quit if he wasn't going to go)? His name is Urameshi Yusuke. The darkness wasn't a dark space—he just had his eyes closed the whole time. Needless to say, he felt like a stupid idiot.

He slowly opened his eyes. His vision was blurry and he could vaguely see two figures on either side of him. Yusuke quickly closed his stressed eyes due to the dizziness overwhelming from the bright lights in the room. He knew he was just complaining about it being dark, but why did the lights have to be so bright? Didn't anyone ever hear about conserving energy?

When the dizziness went away, Yusuke attempted to open his eyes again. It took a few moments for him to blink the blurriness out his vision. When he could see clearly, Keiko and his mother, Atsuko, were sitting right along his bedside. Tears were threatening to seep from their eyes. They looked like a mess, as if they spent the past several days going through hell and now all of a sudden they had been set free from something that's been troubling them. Yusuke wondered why the women were about to cry. More disturbingly, why were they even watching him sleep?

How long had he been asleep for that matter? Why did his body feel like it had just been hit by a truck? He felt so weak. His head hurt so friggin' bad; it felt like someone was playing tennis by hitting his brain against his skull. What had happened to him?

"Keiko…? Maa…?" he slurred. He tried sitting up with protests made by Keiko who said he shouldn't exert himself, and to just lay back to rest. Ignoring her, he realized he wasn't in his bed or in his bedroom. Taking in his surroundings, he discovered he was in a hospital room. "What's going on?" Yusuke groaned slightly in pain from moving. Boy did his body feel like shit.

Atsuko's expression grew from concerned to that of relief, letting it be made known by letting out a big sigh she had been holding in. But as quick and unpredictable as the weather changed, she grew pissed. The young mother pounded Yusuke on the head—hard—with her fist, much to Keiko's grievance.

"OW!" Yusuke exclaimed, clutching his throbbing head. As he held on to it, he felt bandages wrapped around his skull. He must have been in an accident and hit his head somehow, which explained why he was in the hospital and why he had a bad headache. Of course his mother had to make it worse. "What the hell was that for?"

"That was for worrying the hell out of me and Keiko-chan, you moron! I thought I lost you…" Atsuko bit her lip as she quietly began to sob.

Yusuke's eyes widened as he watched his mother cry. He didn't like seeing her cry. The only time he ever saw her do so was when his dad left, and some other occasion he couldn't think of at the moment.

"Mom…" he whispered sympathetically, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"OH YUSUKE!" Atsuko wept louder. She latched her arms around her son's neck in a headlock which was meant to be a hug.

Yusuke flailed his arms comically as he tried to free himself from Atsuko's iron grip.

"Ack! Let go!"

"Yusuke! Oh Yusuke…!"

"Atsuko, I know you were worried about Yusuke, but you need to let go of him. He just woke up from his coma and still hasn't recovered from surgery." Keiko said, being the voice of reason.

Atsuko begrudgingly did what the girl said, sniffing as she wiped away the tears in her eyes. Yusuke let out a sigh of relief, falling back against the pillow. His mother could be strong. He only then realized the full extent of Keiko's words.

"Wait, I was in a coma—I had a surgery?"

Keiko nodded forlornly. "You had massive head trauma. The doctor said when you woke up… if you woke up… that you might have some memory loss. But you seem to remember who we are. I was scared y-you…" she trailed off, trying desperately to keep the tears back.

"Of course I know who you are." Yusuke reassured her. She was another person Yusuke didn't like seeing sad. He finally took the chance to look over her appearance more closely. She was definitely a wreck. Keiko's clothes were wrinkled and her eyes had bags under them. She must have not slept in a while. Yusuke felt terrible for making her worry about him.

He then noticed something was…different…about her. An image about a fire burning part of Keiko's hair flashed in his mind.

"Keiko, wasn't your hair short? How long was I out for it to grow back completely?" Indeed the girl sported long pigtails as she used to.

Keiko seemed surprised. "You've been in a coma for only a few days, Yusuke. I haven't had my hair short since we were kids."

Yusuke scratched at his bandages, confounded. Maybe he only imagined her hair to be short. She did say the doctor said he might experience memory loss. So then why was his gut telling him he was right about the fact that Keiko had short hair?

He pushed the thought aside. There were more pressing matters to be addressed. Memories were slowly starting to come back to him before he blacked out now that he remembered being in a fire. That was when he was dead—the other time Yusuke remembered witnessing his mom cry. Why couldn't he remember being dead? That was kind of a major turning point in his life.

Yusuke recalled Koenma sending him on a mission. He and the others had to go apprehend a demon who was killing humans. The last thing he could remember was fighting the demon. Everything else after drew a blank. He couldn't even remember what the demon looked liked or if he managed to kill him.

"Where are Kuwabara, Kurama, and Hiei anyway? Those jerks probably know what happened to me after I saved their sorry asses."

Atsuko and Keiko exchanged worried glances.

"What? What happened to them?" Yusuke's tone rose higher when they wouldn't answer him. He was beginning to get scared. Did the demon kill them?

"Who are they?"

Yusuke fell over in disbelief. "You know who they are! You just met Hiei and Kurama, and Kuwabara goes to our school!"

Keiko frowned. "I know Kuwabara but I wasn't aware you two became…friends. I thought you two hated each other. And I don't recall you introducing me to anyone."

Maybe Keiko was the one losing her mind. How could she not remember anything? Sure he and Kuwabara had their moments—they still do—but he didn't hate the guy. Their rivalry blossomed into a friendship...a somewhat forced, abusive friendship where he would beat the crap out of the stupid oaf when the time called for it (but most of the time for no reason at all). Keiko knew this already, and she had met Hiei and Kurama before he went on the stupid mission. Something wasn't right.

"What about the mission? What happened? Aren't I here in the hospital because of the demon we were sent to look for?"

Keiko became startled by Yusuke's rant. "Yusuke, you're starting to scare me…"

"His head trauma from the accident must be even worse than we thought. He's even more of a dunce now." Atsuko stated casually, as if her son ranting about demons was normal. She took out a flask from her pocket and downed the liquor inside.

Well it didn't take long for her to fall back into routine. Yusuke noted sourly.

Keiko would have given Atsuko a disapproving look if she hadn't been so concern with Yusuke's state of mental health.

"Yusuke, maybe you should rest. The accident has taken its toll on you."

"There you go again about an accident!" Yusuke snapped. "What accident? Did I get hurt because of that freaking demon bitch?"

"Yusuke… you were hit by a car trying to save a kid…"

Oh fuck.

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Dun Dun Duuuuuun.

Well there you have it. It's kinda short but I hate to say if I'm going to update this story any faster, then the chapters have to be short… I kinda have a bad track record with updating stories… :sweat drops:

But I hoped you guys enjoyed reading this. Please feel free to leave a review. Tell me if you liked, or hated it. I like critique.

Cya!