For Kellenanne. I hope this makes you feel at least a little bit better. :hugs:
A/N: There will be some Kurama/Botan in later chapters.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own YYH.
Chapter 1: Routine
The bright sunlight shone over the bustling city of Tokyo, golden rays sliding over tall buildings and busy roads alike. On the side of the road, two youngsters, a black-haired youth and a girl with an unusual shade of blue hair were walking, arguing vociferously among themselves.
"Still, Botan," grumbled the boy, rubbing the back of his head and suppressing a wince. "You could've warned me," he said reproachfully as he turned an accusing eye on the girl walking beside him.
"I did!" Botan retorted hotly. "It's not my fault you were too busy staring at her chest to notice." Botan rolled her eyes at the distraction that bloomed on Yuusuke's face at her words.
"As perfectly stare-able as it was, too," said Yuusuke, with a dreamy expression on his face.
Botan shook her head in exasperation. "Yuusuke..."
Yuusuke turned back to her with a grin, taking in the simple sundress that the deity had on and eyeing her up and down, the mischevious grin slowly changing into a leer. "You could join us sometime, you know," he drawled, winking at the startled deity. "I don't think Keiko'd mind all that much."
Botan twitched. A second later, Yuusuke was lying on the ground, clutching his head and moaning in pain. "Dammit, Botan!" he shouted, as he sat back up, rubbing his aching head and glaring fiercely.
"You deserved it!" Botan had her hands on her hips, glaring down at Yuusuke. "Can't you stop being a pervert for even two seconds?"
"Hey, don't blame me, it's all my adolescent demon hormones waking up," he grinned at her as he stood up, dusted himself off and started walking, hands behind his head.
"Yuusuke, you were like this long before the demon part of you had been woken up!" Botan glowered at him.
"...There was always my human teenage hormones, you know," Yuusuke pointed out, after a thoughtful pause.
Botan pursed her lips. It was pointless to argue with Yuusuke when he was like this. Which was, regrettably, nearly all the time.
"Hey, look!" Botan's eyes snapped up at the exclamation to look at Yuusuke, who was flailing his arms wildly about like a circus performer. She giggled. It never ceased to amaze her how someone who could fight as well as Yuusuke could look so uncoordinated in normal life. "It's Kurama! Oi, Kurama! Wait up!" shouted Yuusuke, still waving his arms madly at the youth walking some distance in front of them.
This time, her eyes looked in the direction Yuusuke was pointing. Sure enough, she glimpsed a flash of red in the crowd. Yuusuke grabbed her arm and pulled her after him mercilessly, resulting in Botan stumbling rather ungracefully behind him.
"Ow! Yuusuke, leggo, that hurts!"
Yuusuke finally lurched to a stop in front of a rather startled red-haired youth, letting go of Botan's hand and completely ignoring the deity's complaints. She glared up at him, rubbing her aching wrist.
"Hey, Kurama! Lucky we bumped into you here, huh?" Yuusuke grinned. "Now we don't hafta walk all the way to your house just to say hi."
"Hello, Kurama-kun!"
"Good evening, Yuusuke," Kurama's eyes wandered from the grinning face of Yuusuke to the cheerful Botan. "Botan, you're looking lovely."
"Thank you, Kurama-kun," Botan smiled back at him.
"Hey! How come he gets a 'Thank you, Kurama-kun' when he says that and I get a whack on the head?" Yuusuke demanded, in some indignation.
"That's because he complimented me like a civilized person while you acted like a perverted freak," Botan sniffed haughtily at him. "I really wonder how Keiko-chan puts up with you, Yuusuke."
"That's simple," Yuusuke muttered sourly. "She keeps bashing me over the head with whatever heavy thing she has handy," Yuusuke tone turned even sourer. "Even when I don't really deserve it."
"Well, you most definitely deserved the one that you got today," Botan muttered.
"I just said that she looked hot! Jeez, you try to be considerate..."
"Yuusuke, you asked her if she wanted help to remove her dress!"
"She was sweating!"
"That was only because she was chasing you! And you just had to ask her that just when three of her friends had joined you guys, didn't you?"
"Hey, those three were cutting into our quality time together!" Yuusuke defended, hands wide open in a 'don't blame me' gesture.
"Uh-huh. If by 'quality time', you mean making Keiko-chan so mad she can't think straight," Botan retorted back.
Melodious chuckling drew back the two friends' attention back to Kurama, who was looking at the both of them in amusement, green eyes sparkling. Yuusuke and Botan blinked at him, having been so caught up in their heated argument that they'd nearly forgotten the redhead's presence. Yuusuke just grinned back at Kurama, completely unashamed, while Botan looked chagrined, but smiled sheepishly back at the chuckling redhead.
"So, Kurama, how was your day?" asked Yuusuke, as the three of them started walking. Kurama glanced once at Yuusuke, then turned his eyes on the road in front of them.
"It was... interesting," he replied, albeit with a strange tone in his voice that made both Yuusuke and Botan look back at him curiously. Kurama had a half-smile on his face, but his gaze was unfocussed, like he was thinking of something else while his eyes were still trained in front of him.
"Well?" Yuusuke burst out, never being one for being patient in the best of circumstances. "Are you gonna tell us, or not?"
"Yuusuke!" Botan frowned at him.
A small laugh drew their attention to Kurama, who still looked like he knew an inside joke that the others didn't. "No, that's okay," he shook his head, still smiling. "I suppose it was lucky that I ran into you. I confess I'm not entirely sure what to do..." he trailed off.
"Kurama, stop speaking in riddles and just tell us, why don't you?" Yuusuke snapped irritably.
Kurama spared an amused glance at him. "I'll get straight to the point then."
"Any time now," Yuusuke rolled his eyes. Kurama shook his head with a small smile and started to speak, turning his eyes back on the road.
"About a week ago, this police inspector had come to talk to me," he started, ignoring the nonplussed stares of his companions. "It was concerning one of the girls who was killed in the attacks that's been occurring recently," he explained. His voice took on a musing tone. "She used to sit next to me in one of my classes."
"Hey, wait up," Yuusuke interrupted. "Do you mean those murders that they're saying is being done by a serial killer, or something?"
Kurama nodded at him. "There's been six murders as of now. All the victims were college students, three males and three females."
"Oh, how awful," murmured Botan, a distressed look on her face.
Yuusuke whistled. "Keiko was talking about it. She heard on the news that the cops were going crazy, coz they couldn't figure out anything about the killer, even by now," Yuusuke turned his eyes back to Kurama. "So what'd they wanna ask you about?"
"Oh, just the usual," Kurama waved a graceful hand in the air. "Anything ususual that I noticed about her behaviour, if she'd told me something, and that sort of thing. He asked me a few questions, thanked me, and left."
"Well, this happened a week ago, didn't it?" Yuusuke interrupted, frowning. "Why are you being all distracted about it now?"
"Yuusuke, you didn't let me finish," Kurama replied patiently. "Today Kaitou came to talk to me between classes," he remarked.
"You mean that soul-stealer?" Yuusuke was still frowning.
Kurama nodded at him. "Apparently, the police have been talking to him as well. Except, of course, they've been asking him something else altogether." Yuusuke and Botan curiously looked at the fox demon, whose entire expression now conveyed great merriment.
Kurama looked at the questioning faces of his friends before casting his thoughts backward. "Well, it was like this..."
-------- x --------
"Minamino-san!"
Kurama turned his head back at the somewhat familiar voice, spotting the features of his high school colleague almost immediately.
"Kaitou-san," Kurama nodded back at him. He had seen the boy a handful of times in campus, but since they didn't have any classes together, they hadn't seen each other very often. "How have you been?"
"Oh, fine, fine," Kaitou nodded back at him. "Do you have any classes right now?" Kurama shook his head, a bit intrigued that Kaitou would seek him out like this. "No, I'm free for an hour," he replied, a question apparent in his voice.
"Oh, good," Kaitou sighed. "Can we go somewhere quiet? I need to talk to you for a moment," he added, eyes flickering at the crowd of students around them.
-------- x --------
"So, Kaitou-san, what's this about?" Kurama asked curiously, when the both of them were situated on a bench in a relatively quiet corner. The bespectacled boy didn't speak for a long moment. Letting out a breath, he finally turned to the demon sitting beside him. "Minamino-san, a policeman came to talk to me earlier this week about the death of a girl. I believe she was in one of your classes?"
Kurama nodded, thinking that he had a hint about where this was going. "Yes, she was. And the police had come to talk to me once as well," he acknowledged.
"Mm-hmm," Kaitou hummed non-committally. "Apparently, now they've got a suspect," he affirmed.
Kurama blinked. "Oh?"
As interesting as this was, he had no idea how this pertained to him. But Kaitou wasn't the sort of person to say anything without a point. Kurama curbed his curiosity and waited patiently.
"They've been by to talk to me three times already," Kaitou elaborated. "They seem to think that the serial murders are being done by someone enrolled in the university itself," Kaitou adjusted his glasses at Kurama's impassive stare. "Someone who has contact with students of their own age group," he clarified.
Kurama was intrigued in spite of himself. "Is that so?" Emerald eyes sparked belatedly at an inconspicuous phrase uttered by the other boy.
"...They seem to think..." Ah.
"By your words, Kaitou-san, I suppose you might not subscribe to that notion?" Kurama asked, a hint of a smile on his lips.
Kaitou half-smiled at Kurama. The human teen would never admit it, but it was rather refreshing to be around someone who picked up on everything as quickly as himself. Demon, or not, it didn't matter.
Kaitou didn't answer Kurama's question immediately, choosing instead to continue with his account.
"There was this inspector, name of Nakahara. He seemed especially fixated on one particular student in my talks with him. I was curious, so I looked it up personally, to find out why," he trailed off, eyes on the clouds gently trailing across the sky.
"I must admit, though, I can see why he's so interested," Kaitou acknowledged, as he leaned back on the bench. "The student he's suspects seems to have had at least some contact with nearly all of the murder victims. Two were seen at the library at about the same time when the suspect was there just before they were killed, another lived near his house, and two more were in the same classes he is enrolled in, out of which one...," Kaitou stopped then, turning back to Kurama.
"...used to sit right next to him in class," he finished, looking up at the blank face of Kurama, whose eyes were gradually filling with dawning comprehension.
There was a stunned pause in which Kurama turned a blank stare on a smirking Kaitou, who had the satisfaction of seeing that perfect facade crack, even for a brief moment.
Finally, Kurama broke the silence. "Kaitou-san, you cannot be serious," he stated flatly, disbelief colouring every word.
Kaitou shook his head in dark amusement. "I'm afraid I am, Minamino-san. And the thing is..."
-------- x --------
Kurama drew himself out from his thoughts to see Yuusuke and Botan both gazing blankly at him. He didn't blame them for their reaction. Or lack thereof."And that's not all," Kurama continued, one finger thoughtfully tapping his chin. "I checked up the dates and the times when the murders were supposed to have happened, and unfortunately I don't seem to have an alibi for any of them," He turned his gaze to the bewildered faces of his companions. "I was either alone here, or in the Makai," he concluded with a regretful sigh.
Yuusuke was the first to shake himself out of his stupor. "Wait, wait, lemme get this straight," he interjected, with an air of forced calm that didn't completely hide the undertone of disbelief lacing his voice. "Are you telling us that you," he bit out, stabbing at the air in front of Kurama with a pointed finger, "are the leading suspect among the cops in the murders that've been happening around here?"
Kurama surveyed the accusing, narrowed gaze of Yuusuke and the wide, dismayed eyes of Botan with more than a touch of amusement. "Why, yes, Yuusuke," he grinned at them. "I do believe I am."
--- End Chapter. ---
A/N: I'm not crazy, I swear. Really. :p
R&R, please. :-)