(AN: all of this is Racereff's fault. If you haven't visited her deviantART page you are sorely missing out. And no, I don't know why Boys of Summer decided it belonged to this fic. Pfaaahh.)

Nobody on the Road

It all came down to this: Kuwabara had definitely started it.

He'd been out on the roof, even though it was unusually hot outside lately, and he'd been talking to Keiko of all people, eating his shitty lunch and trying to think of a good way to break up with her. She talked at him, but all Yusuke heard was blah blah blah worried about you, blah blah blah skipping school. It was most of what he'd heard day-in, day-out for the past year and a half, and as much as he cared about Keiko as a human being, as a kind-hearted person, and kind of a good-looking chick, he was starting to think that he didn't really like her that much as a girlfriend. So he tuned her out and slurped at his juicebox, and totally lost track of time.

Apparently they'd lost track of enough time that Kuwabara felt the need to climb the stairs to the roof and inform them that the lunch period was almost over.

"Come back downstairs or you'll be in it bad with Iwamoto - even worse than usual," he told them. Keiko, clearly embarrassed, quickly picked up her things and descended. Yusuke, who cared infinitely less, took his sweet time, but eventually he followed. And right as he was passing by Kuwabara - who was still standing there holding the door open, looking seriously awkward for no apparent reason - Kuwabara reached out his closed fist and hit Yusuke hard in the side. Though he'd taken much worse, he still winced a little, and shot Kuwabara a glare.

"What the hell was that for?"

But Kuwabara just stood there, acting as though he hadn't done a thing.

As he followed Keiko down the stairs, Yusuke was already plotting up ways to get him back.

He tried really hard to make sure he struck when Kuwabara was least expecting it, and he was pretty sure he succeeded. It took two days before the opportune moment arose; the rest of the week got progressively hotter, for reasons unknown. Keiko said that their mild winter had meant they'd have an extra-scorching summer. Yusuke's theory was that Koenma had gotten the chicken pox. It would make just about as much sense as anything else had lately.

They'd just gotten out of school, and Keiko had asked Yusuke to come help her "run some errands." Yusuke, knowing full well that this was Keiko-ese for "shopping," managed to skillfully blackmail Kuwabara into tagging along, just to make his life less miserable. He grumbled, but agreed.

"I'll only be a second!" she chirped, darting into the dressing room with two armfuls of jackets and skirts and leaving them sitting on the sofa outside. Yusuke bit back a groan. Kuwabara just chuckled at him.

So Yusuke, as carefully and precisely as he could, lifted up his left foot and jammed his heel hard down onto Kuwabara's toes.

The howl that Kuwabara just barely held back and the way the expression on his face flitted quickly from confusion to rage told Yusuke that he'd definitely caught him off-guard. But he was starting to understand the rules of whatever this was - there were people around, so they couldn't say anything about it. It was all about sneak attacks.

Keiko emerged from the dressing room in a shade of purple that made her look really stupid, but Yusuke didn't say anything, and she ended up buying the blouse.

After that, the attacks got more frequent and less vindictive. It really was almost a game. Kuwabara's elbow dug into Yusuke's spine while he sat hunched over an arcade game; the corner of Yusuke's school bag "accidentally" collided with the back of Kuwabara's skull in line for the water fountain. Neither of them ever said a word about it - to each other, or to Keiko, who was often there, though she never noticed, when they hit each other. (Yusuke was starting to think that Keiko didn't notice a whole lot of things. Who else would have bought Botan's bogus story about him having an internship?)

Then, on what Yusuke was certain was the hottest day of the year so far - air conditioning cranked up way higher than was normal for this part of the year, students shucking school uniform jackets immediately upon exiting the building - Kuwabara broke the rules.

Yusuke had just gotten back from a really minor search-and-retrieval mission. He hadn't even been sent by Koenma; the job was for Kurama, who'd had a rare plant stolen from his creepy greenhouse and needed someone less recognizable to the thief than himself to try and get it back. It hadn't taken very long, but he'd missed a day of school, and thus a day of getting in his hidden blows on Kuwabara. His spirits perked when he ran into the other boy in the streets later that day. Maybe if they hung out together long enough -

But Kuwabara didn't give him that option. Right there, in the back alley with no one looking, Kuwabara just hauled off and punched him in the face.

He recoiled, like any normal person would do. And the normal person reactions didn't stop there.

"Okay, damnit, that is it!" And rather than just let it go this time, Yusuke hit back.

They didn't even bother with spirit weapons; they weren't even actually trying to hurt each other. No, even low-awareness Yusuke could sense what was going on here. There was something under the surface - something neither of them would talk about, just like the sneak attacks themselves - that needed to sort itself out. And there was really only one kind of "sorting out" Yusuke did. And it definitely didn't involve blah blah blah worried about you. So he just went in swinging fists, brawling like they would have in the old days, and counting on Kuwabara to do just the same. Even so their powers leaked in - Yusuke's blows were definitely the tougher, but Kuwabara's heightened senses allowed him to anticipate and dodge more frequently - but that was inevitable now, and therefore irrelevant. What mattered was making sure he was winning.

And he was winning.

Until Kuwabara kissed him.

Absolutely no warning - just like the first attack and every attack since then. One second Kuwabara had been preparing to sock him in the jaw, and the next his hand was flattening out and turning to grip the side of Yusuke's face and smash their lips together. At first the aggression hurt. Then the aggression started to feel really freaking good.

Like everything else, Yusuke found this rather unexpected. But he at least had the good sense to kiss back.

And he'd thought it was hot outside before! With Kuwabara's tongue trying to worm its way down his throat, Yusuke felt the temperature around them go up another few degrees. Pretty soon he was gasping for breath, panting almost like a dog, but he couldn't stop long enough to properly oxygenate himself because it was just. So. Amazing. Really friggin' gay, but amazing. Because in so many ways, it was just like the fighting. And that meant that Kuwabara always seemed to be half a step ahead of him. He'd think, I wish I could get further into his mouth, and Kuwabara's eager lips would part just that fraction further. He'd think, I'm starting to melt, and Kuwabara would back him over to the wall of the nearest building, pressing him up against it with no little force for stability. He'd think, crap, I'm probably going to get a boner from this...

And Kuwabara's own damn erection would be digging into his hip.

Well. At the very least it was kind of reassuring.

It only took a small, subtle shift of his hips to get Kuwabara's legs uneven with his own, and the realignment of Kuwabara's knee right where he needed it allowed them to get that much closer to one another. The hip grinding that followed was just another normal person reaction. Yusuke felt Kuwabara's cock against his hip even through all their clothes, and for some unknown gay reason that turned him on even more. He thrust hard back at him, craving any friction he could get, any sensation, any pressure, anything that combined with Kuwabara's super-hot mouth and super-hot body and this super-hot weather would make him...

Do that.

"Shit," Yusuke hissed softly against Kuwabara's lips, laughing a little, because he was pretty sure it was at least supposed to take a little bit longer than that. But Kuwabara just laughed, too, and kept kissing him, and kept grinding hard into Yusuke's thigh up against the wall until it happened to him, too, and then they were both laughing, because it had finally worked itself out, without either of them having to say anything about it at all, without any of the blah blah blah. They laughed about it probably a little more than they should have, Yusuke thought, considering how gay this whole thing was.

But once he caught his breath, he couldn't help himself.

"You know, if you had a crush on me, you could have just said something, rather than nearly putting me in the hospital," he said.

"Yeah, I guess so," said Kuwabara. "But I don't think it would have been as hot."

Yusuke snorted. "Oh. So this horrible weather is your fault."