By sashax13

Story Disclaimer: I don't own and am in no way associated with the people who have written, produced, or otherwise assisted in the making of Yu Yu Hakusho; I didn't create these characters; I borrowed them to parody with. I am not making any money off this.

Additional note: Please do not take this story too seriously.

Financial Fraud and Rip-off Flower Seeds

(Chapter title disclaimer: Yes, we know what you're thinking. But Kurama would like you to know that he wasn't involved in either situation.)

"I'm glad everyone was able to come to lunch today," Botan cheerfully addressed Yusuke, Kurama, Kuwabara, Yukina, and sulky Hiei as they sat around a large table in an outdoor café. "It's a good thing that we all can still find time to hang out with each other even when you aren't fighting demons."

"Sure, I'll hang out with anyone who buys me lunch," Yusuke replied sincerely. "Although I kind of don't like restaurants very much. They're stuffy. Fighting demons is way more fun… Waiting for food stinks. But free food is good, I'll admit." He munched on some French fries.

"Yes, thank you so much for paying for our food!" Yukina added sweetly to Botan. Yukina was here on a field trip, with her Ice Maiden International Sorority group, but being the delinquent ice maiden she was, had ditched the others in favor of having lunch with her friends. Yukina was a rebel ahead of her age.

"My pleasure!" Botan answered. "You're too kind."

"We really appreciate it." Yukina said, politely, as usual.

"You're welcome... although, it would dishonest on my part if I took all of the credit. I'm not rich." Botan admitted. She lowered her voice and added quietly. "I took a loan from Koenma's account and filed it as, um, a working expense." She then giggled loudly. But nobody else got what the funny part was.

"Are you allowed to do that?" Yusuke accused.

"What Lord Koenma doesn't know won't hurt him." Botan said defiantly. "He's got so much money he doesn't notice when some of it goes missing. So, if you don't mind keeping this quiet and on the down low…"

"Well… it was kind of stupid for you to trust us with a secret like that, but whatever. Your call." Yusuke shrugged. "Especially Kuwabara."

"Oh shut up. If this wasn't a public facility, I would so be beating you up right now." Kuwabara threatened.

"Ha. You couldn't." Yusuke replied.

"Uh, yeah I can."

"Nuh uh!"

"Yeah huh!"

"Nuh uh!"

"Yeah huh!"

"Nuh uh!"

"Stop it. That counts as fighting." Botan broke up the almost-but-not-really fight.

Kuwabara rolled his eyes, and turned to face her. "Well, if you aren't really paying for our food, then that means we can eat as much as we want." Kuwabara cheered up. "I'm going to order more French fries. Has the waitress come by recently? I haven't seen her in ages."

"Yes, I think you'll be fine." Botan assured him. "Koenma never reads his bills. He doesn't even sign his own name on them. He stamps it. What kind of rule of Spirit World can't sign his own name?" She complained.

"Um. A baby?" Guessed Yusuke.

"Oh." Botan sighed. "Well, you're right. I'll stop complaining about work; let's just enjoy ourselves."

"Maybe Hiei will share his fries with you, Kuwabara?" Kurama suggested idly. He forgot whom he was talking to.

"Hn, I most certainly will not share!" Hiei declared, scooping up his fries and pushing them to the far edge of his plate away from Kuwabara. "Get your own fries. Human."

"Who are you calling human? You're at a whole table full of humans, stupid!" Yusuke yelled. "Well, except for Botan. And Yukina. And, well, Kurama, kind of. Um. Okay, maybe it's just me and Kuwabara. Except technically, I'm a demon too. Hm."

"Forgive me, Yusuke, for your superior logic has now convinced me how wrong I was." Hiei interjected.

"Whatever." Kuwabara sighed. "I knew he wouldn't let me have any. I guess I'm stuck waiting for the waitress to get her act together and do the job she's getting paid for."

Kuwabara glared at Hiei to prove how mad he was for not sharing French fries.

Hiei glared back to prove how stubborn he was.

"Maybe you guys shouldn't sit by each other." Yusuke voiced.

"Hiei, may I have some of your fries, please?" Asked Yukina tactfully. She gave Hiei the pity face.

"Um, well…" Hiei stuttered, then settled, "Of course."

"Yay! Hiei, I love you." Yukina exclaimed with her eyes all lit up.

"Geez, I don't believe this," Kuwabara muttered. "Sure, give some to the cute little girl, but no food for little old me."

"Oh, Kuwabara, you won't starve to death probably." Hiei offered hopefully.

"Thanks for the support." Kuwabara sarcastically retorted. Poor Kuwabara.

Just then, a very attractive blonde sauntered up to the table. She was a total stranger, but that didn't stop her from coming right up to the group and addressing them, smoothing her miniskirt and standing up straight.

"Hello boys! …and girls with oddly colored hair! My name's Kylie." Greeted the girl with a thousand-watt smile. She leaned over and flipped her hair onto the table.

"Are you the waitress, Kylie?" Kuwabara asked hopefully.

Kylie wrinkled her nose. "A waitress? How unbelievably common! Of course I don't work here." she scoffed.

"Hey, this is a five-star restaurant!" Botan exclaimed. "Or I thought it was… if not, then we're being grossly overcharged!"

"Yeah, whatever. Look, I didn't come over here to talk about astrology." Kylie said matter-of-factly. "I just came to ask for the redhead's number."

"Do you mean me?" Kurama inquired apprehensively. "I, um, don't believe I know you. And by the way, five stars in relation to a restaurant doesn't have anything to do with astrology."

"Nope, you've never met me before!" Kylie confirmed, "but I sure have heard of you! I just now saw you sitting here from my table and I think you're unbelievably hot." She purred, batting her eyelashes flirtatiously.

"Um, well, thank you. But I only date intellectual- uh, that is I only date, um… redheads." Kurama lamely covered as so not to crush the Kylie's feelings upon meeting her.

Kylie looked disappointed. "Oh. What if I dyed my hair?" she suggested fingering a piece of hair thoughtfully. "This is just highlights and sun-in. I'm not even a natural blonde, I swear!" she bragged. She whispered, "You know, they say blonde is going out of style now. All my friends have already gone brunette."

"Okay," Kurama said desperately. "How about I make a special deal just for you? If you can beat me at a ridiculously confusing mind game… say, chess, for example, then I will go out with you," he offered, knowing there was no chance in heck for Kylie if she agreed.

"Chess?" Echoed Kylie. "Isn't that the one that's kind of like checkers, but with kings and knights and stuff?" she continued twirling her hair. Seductively. Oh yes, she was hot, but each time she opened her mouth to say something, the magic was lost on everyone at the table (except maybe Yusuke).

"Yeah, that's the one." Kurama confirmed.

"You mean, we have to use all of those different shaped pieces?" Kylie asked, worried that she might not be able to pull this off after all. She didn't ask for this; she only wanted a date!

"Yes, I was assuming so." Kurama answered.

"And do we have to play by the actual chess rules?" Kylie asked, in a nervous voice, now twirling her hair between her fingers madly. She looked nervous. Anxiety lines began to form on her forehead.

"Of course."

"Oh." Kylie looked crushed. "Ummm… I just remembered, I have to be at this at this one place in like, ten minutes. See you around." She walked away rapidly to salvage what was left of her pride, swinging her tiny purse in her hand as she went.

"Wow, Kurama, you totally showed her." Kuwabara said. He rolled his eyes. "She'll never go out with you now."

"Yes, it scared me for a second because I thought I was actually gonna have to play her." Kurama answered seriously.

"Oh, please. She came over to see you, and you just rejected her? This is so unfair!" Yusuke complained.

"Why?" Asked Kurama.

"How come I don't have as many fan girls as you? I'm the protagonist," Yusuke complained. "Seriously. You would think girls would appreciate all of the world saving that goes on around here. Sure, they say "Thank you", but you don't see randomly hot girls walking right up to me and asking for my number."

"Hey, guys!" Keiko greeted, appearing out of nowhere with a binder in her arms, flushed cheeks and windswept hair. "What are you talking about?" She questioned Yusuke innocently.

"Um… chess." Yusuke lied. Fortunately Keiko didn't call him on it.

Keiko shrugged, pulled up a chair and sat down. "Sorry I'm so late. With all of my extracurricular activities, I barely have any free time to spare!" She grinned apologetically at her group of "friends", whom she only hung out with on weekends when there was less of a chance being recognized by one of her popular friends, or if the world was approaching an apocalypse, which, of course, happened a lot more often around this group than one might imagine.

"Why do you like to hang out at school all morning on Saturdays?" Kuwabara complained. "I thought you only had student council meetings during the week!"

"Yeah, what if the school is trying to brainwash you?" Yusuke suggested.

"Of course not! School would never try to brainwash anyone! They just work hard to provide a safe learning environment and build strength through community, strength through discipline, and strength through action. You don't appreciate it enough."

"Uh… okay." Yusuke responded. Everyone else just pretended they knew what she was talking about.

"Well, anyway, I have an offer for you guys that you can't possibly resist!" She said smiling enthusiastically. "How would you all like to buy things from me to support our school fundraiser?"

"A school fundraiser? Don't tempt me!" Yusuke said sarcastically. "I'm trying to resist."

"Oh, shut up," Keiko retorted.

"What are you selling?" Botan asked.

"Glad you asked!" She pulled out a brochure. "We're selling a wide variety of rare, exquisite, flowers from all over the world. At a discounted price, of course." She opened up the leaflet to reveal pictures of white and yellow flowers that looked suspiciously like plain, regular daisies and dandelions, except they all had elaborate, scientific sounding fake Latin plant names underneath them. ("Petalus Flowerus" and "Botanical Pollenflowerium Theadvertisingcommittetotallymadethisupium")

"Those aren't real plant names." Kurama told her with great superiority while examining the leaflet.

"Those look exactly like daisies and dandelions." Yusuke grabbed the pamphlet from Keiko. "What kind of fundraiser is this? Is our school really so desperate for money?"

"It's for prom in two weeks." Keiko sighed.

"Since when does our school have a prom?" Yusuke wondered.

"Since yesterday. We voted. The only other choice we have to spend our school's money on is to install soda machines in the cafeteria."

"You should have done that!" Kuwabara exclaimed.

"And sacrifice the otherwise healthy diets of our student body?" Keiko asked incredulously.

"Keiko, we're teenagers, we don't have healthy diets." Yusuke pointed out. "I mean, I eat ice cream for dinner on weekends."

"Me, too, I eat ice cream for dinner every day," Hiei added but, oddly enough, no one paid any attention to Hiei's ice cream fixation. They just accepted it as fact at this point; perhaps this was a disease Hiei had spontaneously latched onto.

"Just because you aren't motivated to practice good eating habits doesn't mean I'm willing to sacrifice it for the whole school." Keiko insisted. "It's much better that our money be invested in a wholesome, character-building experience like Prom."

"Wholesome. All right." Yusuke decided it might be easier not to argue.

"Look, I don't care what you guys think but will you please buy some flower seed packets from me? That's all I'm asking," Keiko begged.

"I wish I could, but those awful weeds would take over my garden and strangle my poor, innocent lilacs." Kurama declined politely.

"You have lilacs?" Kuwabara asked giving Kurama a weird look.

"Yes. They cost me a fortune on the Demon Black Market trade." Kurama answered.

"Hold on, what?"

"At the K-mart sale. Last week, I mean. They cost me a fortune at that K-mart sale last week. I obtained those through entirely legal means." Kurama covered quickly.

"Oh, god… they must be evil monster lilacs." Kuwabara imagined.

"No, actually they're just for decoration." Kurama assured him. "The reason they cost so much is because of the rare coloring."

"What, no fangs? No poison?" Kuwabara asked incredulously.

"No. I… just like gardening." Kurama admitted sheepishly.

"You can buy a flowerpot to go with the dandelions for only seventy-five dollars extra," Keiko offered Kurama like a pro salesgirl.

"Keiko, if we just give you money, will you stop trying to make us buy stuff?" Botan suggested.

"Yes. Our school accepts donations. But if you only donate, then I don't win any fundraising prizes. I really want a flying stuffed cow," Keiko explained sadly.

"I'll buy you a flying stuffed cow from the toy store." Yusuke offered.

Keiko considered this carefully and finally agreed. "Okay. But we still need money for prom somehow."

"Aren't you charging money for the tickets?"

"Oh, yeah… I'd forgotten about that. By the way, they cost less if you have a date, so keep that in mind." She added.

"Oh, no," Yusuke could see where this was going. "Please don't make me go to prom! I hate school functions! I am totally against education! And dancing! And prom is a combination of both!"

"Too bad, I already bought your ticket." Keiko grinned triumphantly. "You are so going, there's no backing out now."

"Awwww…" Yusuke moaned.

"Yukina, would you like to be my date for prom?" Kuwabara asked with the tone of someone making a wedding vow.

"I'd love to." Yukina replied enthusiastically.

Hiei's eyes narrowed. Angrily, he ate some more French fries, except now he was eating French fries with attitude and glaring at both of them. Then he threw a French fry at Kuwabara's head. But Kuwabara was so in love he didn't notice.

"It makes me wish I could join in the festivities." Kurama said wistfully. "My school doesn't even have a prom."

"You'd need to find a date from our school, then," Keiko said.

Kurama sighed sadly. "Aw, man. I can never find any girls that want to go out with me. Not a single one! Sometimes I think I must be cursed, or ugly or something." he lamented. Everybody ignored his lament. They had very little patience when it came to this subject with Kurama.

"Here's a donation for your prom, Keiko," Botan offered forking over some bills.

"Oh, you don't have to do that!" Keiko refused politely. "You're already buying lunch."

"Don't worry, I can afford it." Botan assured her with a smile. Keiko raised her eyebrows. Yusuke coughed loudly. Keiko let it go.

End of Chapter

Notes:

Yes, I really hate fundraising.

If people like this, I will add more to it. Next chapter would be the story of the potential impending disaster/prom.

Any feedback is appreciated! Thank you!

sashax13

(PS: Am I the only one who is completely baffled by chess?)