A/N: Ah, poor Kuwabara. I just can't seem to write for anyone aside from him. Do you all think I should try to force myself to? Or should I stick with our lovable psychic? Because I have more than a few pairings that I want to try writing for - all involving Kuwabara.

THIS

"Why aren't you going out with your buddies all the time anymore?" Shizuru asks when Kuwabara walks inside the house.

He tosses his bookbag on the floor. Sheds his blue jacket and drops it ontop. Then looks at Shizuru like she's grown two heads. "What're you talking about?"

Snorting, Shizuru takes the cigarete out of her mouth and points it in Kuwabara's direction. "Don't pull that with me, Kazuma."

Kuwabara stares at her for a moment and then gives in. He isn't stupid. Eighteen years of living with Shizuru has taught him when to pick his battles and when to just give in to the older girl. This isn't a time when he should fight, he decides. So he drops the facade and lets the exhaustion slip into his eyes.

"Because,' Kuwabara tells her. 'they don't need me as much anymore."

"Bullshit." Shizuru snaps - because she knows that isn't true. There isn't a single fight that team has ever been in that Kuwabara hasn't helped them win. She knows this, not because anyone told her, but because everytime her younger brother fights she sees it happen in a dream.

Kuwabara just shrugs at her. "That's what they say, at least. I think there's something else going on but, you know, they'll tell me eventually."

The doubt in his voice puts a frown on Shizuru's face. "Let me guess. You haven't even asked them about it, have you?"

Again, Kuwabara shrugs at her.

"Damnit, Kazuma." Shizuru shakes her head at him. "You need to go tell those assholes that you know they're up to something. Hell, I bet you already know what they're up to. "

Silence greets her statement. The hurt in Kuwabara's light blue eyes speak for him, though.

They say that, yes, he knows what his team-mates are up to. That it is something that hurts him. Makes him feel useless and alone and like they've pushed him aside for something better. Something grander. Kuwabara's eyes also tell her that he doesn't plan on letting them know he realizes this already.

"It that bad?" Shizuru questions, narrowing her eyes at the younger psychic.

Kuwabara looks away. Shizuru takes that as an answer and feels her stomach drop. The urge to go find one of her baby brothers so called team-mates and beat them until they tell her everything is overwhelming.

"I'm going upstairs, Shizuru." Kuwabara mutters, still not looking at her. He takes slow steps towards the stairs, even slower up them, walking as though something is laying across his back and weighting him down.

The only reason Shizuru doesn't go after Yusuke is because she knows it will only make things worse for the orange haired man.

IS

It is almost midnight when someone knocking on the door wakes Shizuru up. She is sprawled out on the couch, remote on her stomach and television playing an old re-run of a cop show, right where she fell asleep earlier that night. She doesn't get up right away, instead laying and listening to the impatient pounding on the door and focusing in on the spirit energy of her visitor.

A frown creases her sleep-mussed face when she places the signature.

Shizuru tosses the remote on the floor when she gets up. Makes sure her steps are loud as she crosses the room, hoping to convey just how beyond pissed off she is. When she opens the door it is with enough force to send the person on the other side scrambling backwards.

"Hey! Watch where you swing that thing!" Yusuke snaps, narrowing brown eyes at the older girl.

"What the Hell do you want?" Shizuru demands. A small jolt of delight shoots through her when Yusuke seems to shrink a little under her gaze.

"Kuwabara. He around?" Yusuke asks her. "We need him up in Spirit World."

"I should just tell you 'no' and slam this door in your face, you know that brat?" Shizuru questions, raising one eyebrow. She makes sure that he knows she isn't joking. That she means what she is telling him and that the only reason she isn't doing that is because she isn't finished with him.

Yusuke crosses his arms over his chest and frowns at her. "What'd I do to you?"

It has been a while since Yusuke saw the older woman but he is almost certain that they left on good terms. Or as good of terms as they are ever on.

Shizuru just stares at him for a moment - and in that moment she takes in how he really looks. Rather, she takes in the way his spirit energy looks. Because, Shizuru has learned, there is no way to change the appearance of your spirit energy and it will always give away how someone really feels.

"Kazuma's in his room. Probably still asleep." Shizuru tells him, stepping aside so the half-demon can enter the house. As Yusuke makes his way up the stairs, hands shoved in his pocket and frown still on his face, she calls after him; "You better be sure about whatever you're doing, Urameshi. I'm not going to let you in here so easily after this."

And she won't. Because she is in charge of making sure her baby brother stays safe and she knows that whatever Yusuke has to say tonight is going to hurt Kuwabara like nothing ever has.

NOT

Kuwabara is sitting up in his bed when Yusuke opens the door to his bedroom. He is already fully dressed. Fully awake. A defeated look is on his face, blue eyes hooded and dark with sorrow, mouth drawn tight.

But he makes Yusuke speak first.

"Kuwabara. Koenma needs all of us in Spirit World." Yusuke tells him, voice clipped and words right to the point.

Kuwabara gives a stiff, jerky nod. "I know. He wants to tell me about the gate, right?"

Brown eyes go wide and a small gasp leaves Yusuke. He looks beyond surprised that Kuwabara knows why he is there. Beyond surprised that, since the human knows, he hasn't been punched yet.

"How - you know?" Yusuke blurts out.

The snort that Kuwabara gives the other man is a derisive one. "No shit, Urameshi."

"For how long?" Yusuke demands, anger creeping into his voice and pushing out the disbelief. "Koenma promised no one would tell you!"

Kuwabara looks right in Yusuke's eye when he speaks. Keeps his voice clear, steady, and blank of all the hurt and the anger that he really feels. "I knew the moment that you did, Yusuke."

Short. To the point. Yet still they pierce deep into Yusuke's heart, making it stutter and ache, and they stick there like barbs. "Kuwabara -"

"We should go. Botan won't want to wait outside forever." Kuwabara interrupts. Then he pushes himself off his bed and past Yusuke. Out of the room. Down the stairs. Ignores the apologetic look Shizure sends him and the dissapointed one she sends Yusuke.

And walks out into the cold of the night.

GOODBYE

From the moment that Kuwabara sets foot in Koenma's office, all eyes are on him. On the way he looks like his entire world has been ripped out from under him in one fell swoop. On the way that, unlike it usually is, the spirit energy he gives off is dull and weak; and for Hiei, who can normally make out its bright glow, almost invisible.

"You already told him?" Kurama guesses.

Yusuke's shoulders slump as he closes the large door behind him. "He already knew."

Kurama opens his mouth as though he is going to say something and then closes it again. Turns inquisitve green eyes on the orange haired man and tilts his head slightly in question.

Instead of giving an answer, Kuwabara walks right up to the small prince's desk. "When are you sealing off the gateway?"

Koenma isn't actually surprised. He had noticed what the team had failed to. That, instead of getting angry over no longer being drug along on every mission or being included in the training matches the team held every weekend, Kuwabara acted as though nothing was changing.

"Tonight. As soon as you all say goodbye, actually." Koenma tells him, ignoring the nasty look that Yusuke sends him and the irritated ones that Hiei and Kurama give.

The prince of Spirit World has never felt a special connection to Kuwabara like he has with Yusuke. Kuwabara, in Koenma's mind, has always and will always be a human. Something that will eventually die. So he hasn't gotten close. Hasn't done for Kuwabara the same thing that he has done for the rest of his detectives. But Koenma still feels that the human should understand tonight will be the last time he ever sees the demons he has come to call friends.

Koenma doesn't realize that they are all more then friends to Kuwabara, some more so than others.

"Kuwabara -" Kurama starts, only to be waved silent by the orange haired man.

"Don't bother, Kurama." Kuwabara tells him, voice stilted and pinched. "I know why you all didn't tell me. I think it's a stupid one, but I do know."

Kurama looks away.

Yusuke shoves both hands in his pockets and shuffles his feet, suddenly agreeing with Kuwabara. It was stupid, he decides, to think keeping it from the other man would make it easier on them all.

Hiei straightens up from where he was leaning against the wall and crosses the room, stirde long and purposeful. He stops in front of Kuwabara and gives a single nod, blinking as he does.

The gesture is small but it makes Kuwabara's breath hitch all the same. Respect. That is what it means. Respect and acceptance - coming three years too late to really amount to anything but meaning so much more than Kuwabara could say all the same.

"I highly doubt that we're going to meet each other again." Hiei tells him.

Kuwabara nods. "I know."

"Try not to get yourself killed to soon after we leave, why don't you?" Hiei snarks at him, but there's a level of seriousness about him anyway.

"Can't promise you anything, shorty." Kuwabara tells him. Then he blinks and Hiei is gone.

It's odd, but when Kuwabara crosses the room and grabs Kurama's smooth hand in his own calloused one, he isn't upset. Even when he tells Kurama goodbye, wishes him luck with whatever he is going to do in the other world and promises to look after Shiori for him, Kuwabara doesn't feel sad.

He doesn't feel much of anything, actually. Not even when he starts towards Yusuke and takes hold of the half-demons hand.

"Kazuma...Take care of yourself, alright?" Yusuke asks softly.

Kuwabara is acutely aware of both sets of eyes on his back when he gives Yusuke's hand a sharp tug and pulls the shorter man towards him. Wraps both arms around Yusuke in a hug and dips his head down, chin just a few inches above Yusuke's shoulder.

"I - I'm going to be back one day. You know that right? You know I'm going to come back here one day and that I'll find you when I do?" Yusuke all but begs, doing nothing to quell the tremoring of his voice or the tears forming in his eyes.

"I know." Kuwabara tells him. "And I know you, Yusuke. I'll be here when you finish up in Demon World, 'kay? Right here."

The tears are streaming down Yusuke's face when he pulls away. He doesn't try to wipe them away or hide them. He doesn't say or do anything else - just turns and leaves the office, forcing himself not to run.

Kurama leaves right after Yusuke, head bowed as he walks past Kuwabara.

It isn't until the door closes that it all hits him. That the fact his team, his family, has left him in favor of what is supposed to be a permanent life in Demon World really sinks in. That Yusuke is gone and might be gone forever.

The sob wrenches itself from Kuwabara's throat against his will and just like that he crumbles.

Koenma can offer no comfort and doesn't try to.