This oneshot was written for yyhfanfiction's Rare YuYu Hakusho Fanfiction Contest.
Prompt: Platonic Main Four Interaction-Centric
Summary: Kuwabara and Hiei find themselves in a bind when Genkai hatches a plot to improve team relations.
Friendship Bracelets
"What the hell is this?"
Hiei looked down at his wrist in disgust. The bracelet that Genkai had just tied there was a plain thing, made of round wooden beads and twine. At the end of its knotted braid hung a magatama gem, carefully carved to be curved like a comma.
"It's a training exercise." Genkai said as she made her light-footed steps across the courtyard to her second victim. "But also consider it a punishment. Since you two can't seem cooperate worth a damn, even when your own lives are at stake."
Kuwabara watched, thin eyebrows knit in confusion, as the old psychic wrapped a matching bracelet around his wrist as well. "What d'ya mean, 'punishment?'" He laughed nervously. "Why would a couple a' bracelets be—"
He almost missed the glow of Genkai's fingers when she finished tying his off in a pretty little bow. The moment she released it, the entire piece began to glow. Hiei's as well.
Suddenly Kuwabara found himself being dragged forward by his own arm.
He yelped. "Wait." Even digging his heels into the dirt didn't stop the magic from pulling him. "I don't like this!"
Hiei managed to resist the pull enough to keep his feet firmly planted on the ground, but he was unable to reign the arm jutted in the human's direction. The force was too great. He glared at the diminutive woman.
"Stop this." He demanded with a voice full of sour lemons and venom.
"Too late," She itched a spot behind her ear with a pinkie without looking at him. "It can't be reversed. You'll have to figure this out together. I'm not expecting you to sit in a circle and sing kumbaya, but it probably couldn't hurt."
Stumbling over a rock, Kuwabara was thrown forward. With the force of the Miljoner being returned to the extended hand of Thor, the two collided. Magnets clicking together, the bracelets formed a pair of spiritual handcuffs. Hiei stared at its glowing sutra in disbelieve. He was almost too shocked to kick the lanky human out of his lap.
Almost.
Kuwabara grunted when he took one to the gut and was shoved to the side like a rancid stray animal. He jolted when the fire apparition pinned his wrist to the ground with a small black boot and began to tug.
"Hey, Hey, Hey! Ow!" The human yelped before shoving away his teammate's leg and scrambling to his feet. Large, clumsy fingers picked and pried at the tiny little death-trap, but to no avail; the anaconda enchantment had constricted the beads so tightly that he couldn't even wedge his thumb beneath them.
Panic set in when Kuwabara realized the gravity of their situation.
"I can't be stuck to him!" He screeched, jutting his chin at the demon. "I can barely even stand to be in the same room as the guy!"
"My sentiments exactly." Hiei sneered with a loathing so foul it made Kuwabara's blood run like a frozen slushie through his veins.
Genkai cackled.
"Oh look," She tossed over her shoulder as she began to walk away, arms crossed behind her back with twisted satisfaction. "You're agreeing on something. Good for you two. Keep up the good work, boys." Her sarcasm was drier than the brittle clay of a savanna waterhole in the middle of a drought.
The two could only stare as she disappeared into the inner halls of the temple structure and they were left on their own.
A short while and some serious deep breathing exercises later found Kuwabara sitting on the ground with his back against one of pillars holding up the the outer deck of the training hall. His free hand was cradling his head, while the other was held straight in the air for his fellow detainee's inspection.
"How long has it been?" He whined for the fifth time in ten minutes. "Have we starved to death yet? Ya know, that's what happens when deer get their antlers stuck together. They run around like chickens until one dies. Then the other can't run 'round no more, ya know, 'cause there's a dead guy stuck to his head. So he dies too."
Hiei ignored him. He was too busy focusing on the blade in his hand to listen to whatever the idiot was nervously prattling on about. He'd tried wedging it between the bracelet and his left wrist, but had only succeeded in nicking his skin. Then he tried to cut it off from the outside—which would have worked if there wasn't a damn near indestructible spell placed on it. Not even the heat of his fire could mar the blasted things. If he wasn't so far from Makuro's healing capabilities, the fire apparition would have considered cutting his own hand off again just to get away from the endless chatter of that worthless human.
"Hn."
The red eyes of the demon slipped from the bracelet to Kuwabara and then back. His hand flexed and he twisted to get a better look at the human's thicker, harrier wrist with it's gangly lumberjack fingers.
His grip tightened on the hilt, causing the tang to click against it's guard.
"Hey..." Kuwabara turned to the sound, teeth barred with hesitation. "Hey! Don't you go getting any ideas, short stuff! Don't you even think of coming near me with that thing!
Hiei scoffed. "And get your disgusting blood on my sword? It wouldn't be worth the mess."
"What!?" Kuwabara sprang to his feet. "Is my blood not good enough fer your sword, sparky!?
"Hardly. Human blood reeks and it stains everything it comes into contact with. And as much as I'd enjoy seeing you bleed to death, I actually like these clothes."
"Hah!" Kuwabara laughed. He tugged their tied arms, but when Hiei didn't budge he pointed with his left hand instead. "Shows what you know! You've obviously never tried hydrogen peroxide! That junk can get blood outta anything! My sister taught me that! She must've gotten into some pretty grisly fights back when she was in school, 'cause she's really good at cleanin' up blood stains!"
Hiei's devious grin could have scared off even the most hardened yakuza mob boss. "Oh? So you want me to relieve you of your arm?"
The Spirit Detective's second in command went as white as a ghost. "That's not what I—No! Why in the heck would I want you to that, you psycho!?" Eye to eye with the much shorter demon, Kuwabara flailed his arms with accusation. Well, he tried flailing both, but only the free one actually moved beyond anything more than a flapping chicken wing, since Hiei refused to let his arm be thrown about. "Why the heck you're so strong—I'm mean, look at you! You're puny! How is this—No, what I want is to get this crazy Genkai-snare-trap off! Now I don't know about you, but I'm not gonna be stuck with you a minute more than I gotta be. And you're not helping! Argh! Why couldn't I have been tied to Kurama!? At least He would have known what to do about this thing!"
A rustle from the bushed across the courtyard from them drew their attention.
"Speak of the devil." Hiei scoffed, yanking Kuwabara as he leapt from the deck.
"Oh, Kurama thank goodness! You gotta help us out, man!"
But it was Yusuke's voice that responded.
"What are you two going on about? You're so loud, Kuwabara you're waking the..." The detective asked as he stepped out form the treeline behind Kurama, rubbing at his wrist. He stopped short when he saw the predicament their two team extremes were in, and then he burst out laughing.
"She really did it!" He cried. "The old bat really got you guys!? That's hilarious! I never would've thought she'd have the balls enough to actually tie you two together! Holy crap, you're going to be stuck like that forever!"
"Yusuke." Kurama soothed, empathic if not for the smirk hiding behind his hand. "You'll only exacerbate the situation. Which, I believe, would be the opposite of helpful."
"What do you know about it, Urameshi!?" Kuwabara demanded. "Did you put her up to this? 'Cause it ain't very funny! I don't wanna be stuck to Hiei! How am I gonna sleep at night with that freaky dragon so close!? What if I gotta go to the bathroom!? That'd be weird and fifty shades of just plain wrong!"
"Tch." Hiei spat.
He took a bold step closer and pointed to Yusuke's hand—the one that was trying to keep his diaphragm from exploding as he doubled over with laughter. More specifically, to the thin red mark decorating the boy's wrist.
"The hag tied you, too."
"Yes." Kurama took the liberty to answer in Yusuke's stead, seeing as the detective was barely able to breathe, let alone talk. "Genkai came to us with the bracelets, proposing a team building exercise. We were able to dispel them in short order, once we realized the requirement necessary to do so. I'm sure she left you with just as few instructions as she did us; however I fear that it may be more difficult for the two of you, even without the riddle."
"Well, how'd you do it? What's the secret passcode?! Please, I'm desperate here!" Kuwabara practically begged. "You shoulda seen the way he was lookin' at my arm like it was a fresh slab of beef on a butcher's block. He might actually kill me if we stay like this too long."
"You know, I wasn't going to kill you. But I'll consider it, if you can't learn to control that putrid hole in your face. Do you enjoy hearing the sound of your own voice? Because I believe you're the only one that does."
The gangly teen blazed like a burning bush and spun on his heels. His voice ground with the delicacy of a ton of gravel being spun in a waterless cement mixer. "You're such a hypocrite, you little sharp-toothed sea slug. You talk just as much as I do; only you're always tryin' to cut someone in half with that tongue of yers. It's like you were never taught to use your polite words in school. It's somethin' you learn in preschool for cryin' out loud! We're teammates, man. Why're you always such an evil little pain in the caboose?! Can't you just talk to me like a normal person!?"
"Yeah, Hiei. Soften up a bit." Yusuke managed between snorts. "Can't you see that you're hurting Kuwabara's widdle feelings?"
That successfully redirected the redheaded human's attention from the ball of flaming disdain that he was magically zip-tied to.
"I'm not a little kid, Urameshi!"
"Oh yeah? Sure fooled me with your 'why can 't we befriends? ' mush."
"Perhaps that wouldn't be an unwise place to start, in breaking the binding." Kurama spoke up then, causing all three of the bickering boys to freeze and look at their team's word of reason.
Hiei stared at the fox, eyebrows pulled so low that they cast a shadow over his eyes.
"And what could that possibly help to accomplish?"
Kurama raised his hands in surrender and gifted his teammates with a disarming smile. Unfortunately, Yusuke's shit-eating grin completely negated the effect.
"To break the bracelets, you need to work together. Not only physically, but mentally as well. Talking through your differences might help you to achieve total cooperation."
"Wait." Kuwabara stopped him. He tucked his free hand under his armpit in lieu of crossing his arms. Instead of balking at the revelation that he'd been forced into 'get along' cuffs with Hiei or freaking out over the prospect of opening a narrative with the demon that he'd split more hairs with than any other, he took a more pensive turn. "If Genkai wants us to work better as a team and stop being jack-wagons to each other: why did she cuff the two of you together?"
Their head detective and the demon fox shared a look.
Yusuke shrugged. "To make it seem like fair training, probably. But now I'm totally betting it was all a set-up. Because this is priceless."
"Yusuke and l have no personal qualms, this is true, but we were still required to consolidate our efforts. It took critical thinking and ample communication to earn our freedom. Brute force alone will only backfire."
"Okay, so what did you do?"
Another shrug from fearless leader. "We just pulled them apart at the same time and they shattered. See?" He pulled the loose, cracked magatama bead and frayed twine from his high-waisted trainers to show his teammates. The glow of it was gone—the bead nothing more than a shitty piece of broken glass.
The light that had flickered out of Kuwabara's normally lively eyes returned to him at that sign of hope.
"Well if that's all it takes, what are we waiting for!? Piece of cake." Kuwabara braced himself on the ground in a stance akin to a sumo wrestler preparing to face off against his most fearsome opponent. He flexed his restrained arm and gripped his muscle with the other. "Just pull really hard at the same time, right?"
Hiei rolled his eyes, his hand tightened into a fist.
"You do realize that if I pull with my full strength and it doesn't work, it could sever your hand from your wrist. The cord may be indestructible, but your bones don't have that same luxury."
Blanching faster than a bleach stain on denim, Kuwabara's pose faltered.
"Who said anything about going full power!? See what I gotta deal with you guys!? He's crazy! There's no way this is gonna work!" He spun and started walking away. "We just need to talk to Genkai, is all. She can take them off for us if we ask nicely."
Hiei settled his heels into the dirt, so that the lumbering human couldn't make any progress forward, despite his long strides digging into the ground.
Yusuke chortled.
"Where're you going Kuwabara? I can't help but notice you aren't getting very far!"
At the end of his little rope, Kuwabara twisted awkwardly around to face his classmate and rival. "Don't you even start with me right now, Urameshi! I can still beat you to smithereens, even with one hand tied behind my back!"
"Looks an awful lot like it's tied around your front, to me!"
Shrieking, Kuwabara ducked under Hiei's arm to try and disentangle the mess he'd made. He succeeded, but not without managing to make it look like the world's most uncomfortable square-dancing set.
Half biting back a disgusted growl, Hiei yanked, sending his unwilling and unwitting partner toppling to the ground once again. A quick step forward—over Kuwabara's twisted form—put him in front of Kurama.
"Fix this."
"I'm sorry. The spell cannot be removed by another person without the requirements being met, and it's unlikely that Genkai will be willing to remove it so easily—if she is even able to at all. You'll simply have to work together with Kuwabara to get free. It really isn't all that difficult, Hiei. Surely there's something that you can think of, a common ground you both share that makes your mutual magnanimity less arduous."
That time he did growl.
The damn fox smirked.
"Would you get off my back!?" Kuwabara squawked as well as he could with his chin in the dirt. "For such a little guy you're a lot heavier than you look! Seriously, what do the birds feed you in those trees!? I know the suet looks great and all, but it's really not healthy for ya, man."
"Shut up!" Hiei snapped like a twig before stepping down from his perch and storming away.
"Where are you going!? Don't just walk away! Hey!" He might as well have been shouting his protests at a cat. Cats don't give a shit about what you have to say. Well, Eikichi was a great cat listener. But Eikichi was different. Eikichi was perfect and not Hiei. "I'm not a sack of potatoes!"
Ignoring the squeaks and wails of his burden, Hiei continued across the courtyard and away from Yusuke's raucous laughter. Away from Kurama's bemused expression that he was playing off as innocent concern. He indelicately dragged Kuwabara over rocks, bumps, and one conveniently placed stump.
When the funfair came to a pause, Kuwabara shot to his feet and spat bits of grass and dirt from his mouth. Pebbles, sticks, and scrapes coated him from head to toe. Bruises began to sprout on his skin like fungal spores. They were everywhere.
Even in the delicate places.
Kuwabara fumed.
"What the hell was that for!? This shirt is brand new! Now look at all these grass stains!" There was more than a few tears in the garment, but at that moment the grass stains were the bigger concern. "They're gonna be such a pain to get out! My sister will kill you, ya know! She just bought this for my birthday! It hasn't even been a week! You know how many shirts I go through—!?"
His rant was cut off abruptly when the back doors of the temple's main structure slid open behind them.
Dumbfounded, Kuwabara looked up at the young girl standing on the deck.
"Oh my." Yukina's dainty hands flew up to cover her lips before she moved forward with small but sure steps. She looked to the bracelet binding them. "Are you two alright?"
Manliness overtook the human in a whirlwind of pheromones.
He made to brush the crud from his permed hair, but Hiei held him back. Not because he was resisting the movement that time, but because the little fire apparition's shorter arm simply didn't reach that far. Kuwabara settled with cheesy thumbs up and wink.
"I'm fine, baby. Just a couple of bumps, nothing serious."
The ice maiden's attention was diverted from the boy's cuffs to Kuwabara's physical state. She reached forward to brush her thumb across one of the cuts the gravel had made on his cheek.
"Does it hurt?"
"Not anymore, now that you're here, angel. Just hearing your voice makes all my pains fly away."
Hiei cringed so hard it was nearly audible.
Yukina met the prickly demon's grimace with a concern more pure than the Arctic's crystalline blue glaciers.
"Are you certain you're alright?"
For a second, Hiei froze under her scrutiny and kindness. He almost regretted his decision to bring them to the girl. Her hand fell to rest atop her chest as she waited with her infinite universe of patience for his answer. Brilliant cut garnet eyes open and inviting, free of the pity and loathing he knew they would carry if she ever learned of her brother's true past.
He had to look away.
"Nah, don't you worry about him." Kuwabara spoke up with the timing of a jackass. "That's just his face."
For that, the lumbering oaf received a well-deserved heel to the pinky toe. Before either of them could react—be it in pain, shock, or sympathy—Hiei threw forward their tied wrists, stopping just beneath her nose.
The foolish woman didn't even flinch.
"You can break this."
Yukina inspected the beaded bracelets closely. "That spirit energy. This is Master Genkai's spell. She told me that only the wearers are able to break it. I'm so sorry; I'm not able to help you."
"The old woman is wrong. You can break this."
She looked up at him, confusion painted clearly on her face.
"Just what are you getting at, Hiei?" Kuwabara huffed. "If we can't break it, then why would you think Yukina can? We're supposed to be working together to get this stupid thing off, not looking for help from somebody else. Kurama already said that wasn't going to help us. You shouldn't burden Yukina like that."
Hiei shot a withering glare at the human. "You fool. We need to work together, right?"
"Uh, yeah. I just said that."
"Then, if there's anyone who's able to... help us, so we can be free of each other, it's her."
"I'm not really sure that I would be of any use. Certainly I'll just be in your way."
"You're never in the way, Yukina!" Kuwabara boasted. "If the shrimp lord thinks that you're able to help somehow, well, I'm not so sure if I believe anything that he says. But I know what you're capable of, and I'm positive that if anybody is able to help us break this curse, it's gotta be you!"
Instead of the cutting remark that was teetering precariously at the tip of his tongue like a kid looking over the edge of a diving board, Hiei held back and settled on silence.
Sandaled feet shifted beneath the heavy cotton layers of her kimono.
"If you believe so." The ice maiden said, voice still wavering with uncertainty. But then solid determination grabbed hold of her shoulders and set her back straight, chin forward. She was courage and focus personified as one beneath the gentle guise of a young girl. "I can assist you in whatever way that I can." She looked over at Hiei for direction. "What will you need for me to do?"
He hummed and closed his eyes, more to tear away from her gaze than to think.
"Hold onto the bracelets while we pull them apart. It should work."
"What!?" Kuwabara gaped. "That's it!?"
Hiei opened his red eyes to meet hers once more and gave a partial nod in her direction.
Yukina nodded in response.
"Okay." She said, and reached forward to grip the glowing bracelets that tightly encircled both of their wrists. "I've got them."
The fire apparition looked up at the obnoxious human that he was attached to. Usually loud and boisterous, Kuwabara had suddenly gone quiet looked slightly green in the ears.
"Are you going to pull, or are you going to be sick?" Hiei antagonized. "We can wait, if you need to puke so badly. But do you really want Yukina to see how disgusting your race truly is beneath all of your peacock bravado?"
The redhead flustered.
He puffed his chest out far, like the very bird Hiei had mocked him to be, before responding. "I'm fine! I'm not gonna be sick, don't you worry about me Yukina. He's just telling lies because he's scared. This is probably the closest he's ever gotten to such a pretty girl before."
"Care to focus back on the matter at hand?" Hiei ground through his clenched teeth.
Kuwabara gulped. "Right. We just need to pull, yeah?"
He looked down at Yukina, still shorter than him despite standing on the deck, before glancing nervously at the smaller demon he was tied to. In an awkward gesture, he crouched forward to get a little closer to their level.
Hand shaking, the human stared at his clenched fist—at the spell binding it.
He saw Hiei brace himself for the impact.
"Wait. Stop!" Kuwabara looked between the both of them—mostly at Yukina, because he didn't like the way Hiei was staring at him with his beady little devil-rat eyes—apologetically before voicing his concerns out loud. "We're not gonna hurt her, are we? You said yourself that if we pull too hard and it doesn't work, bad things will happen."
"Then you had better not pull hard enough to hurt her, should you?"
"Well you've gotta be soft too! Gentle like a kitten, you hear?! Don't you go throwing your full strength around just to make a point or nothin'. If you want to fight me, I can toss you in the bushes later, shorty. After we're free and clear from innocent bystanders."
"Is that a promise?"
"You bet your butt it is!"
"Then shut up and pull."
Kuwabara shut both his eyes and his trap for just a moment as he adjusted his feet to a sturdier position. His adam's apple got stuck somewhere in his throat when he gulped.
"Wait."
"What?"
"On the count of three, at least?"
Hiei rolled his eyes towards the sky. "Fine."
"One." Kuwabara started under his breath, the word whispered like a prayer to the gods of mercy and freedom. Then, a little bit louder. "Two."
"Three!" Both he and Hiei finished out loud before pulling backwards.
The two magatama charms cracked with an audible click, a scar running through their glass just as Yusuke's had. The eerie glow of Genkai's sutra blazed before breaking in fragments of prismed light. Beads and frayed twine scattered to the ground in the space between their feet.
Pulled unbalanced, Yukina pinwheeled her arms at the very edge of the platform.
Reflexively, both boys reached out to catch the ice maiden before she fell.
Hiei pulled his hand back as if he'd been stung when he realized what he was doing, while Kuwabara lifted her from the platform and helped her to regain her footing on the solid, earthen ground.
"You did it." Yukina cheered when she steady once more. Her hands were bundled close to her chest in her mild enthusiasm. "I'm so happy for the both of you."
Flabbergasted, the two detectives looked at each other, and then down at their wrists.
"Yeah," Kuwabara said, breathy with lingering anxieties and adrenaline. Then, after taking a breath, he laughed, a sharp barking noise from deep within his chest. "Yeah! I knew we could do it all along!" He strutted in place to show off for the girl he loved and flexed his newly freed arm. "It's all about the muscles! We're both pretty strong, so there was no way those puny things could keep us tied for long."
Grumbling, Hiei stalked away before he could hear the reply that followed the tinkling bell of his sister's laugh.
He found Genkai leaning with arms crossed in the shadows behind the adjacent wall of the temple's main dwelling, Yusuke and Kurama at her side.
"The two of you managed to break the cuffs. I suppose congratulations are in order. That was quicker than I'd anticipated." The old woman said in her arid summer's voice. "I didn't expect you to use the girl."
Hiei scowled and peered over his shoulder to where Yukina was talking with his hunched over doofus of a human teammate.
His smile was small and short lived, but it existed all the same.
"How valiant of you, Hiei." Kurama said with a mischievous grin, pushing off the wall to take a step nearer to the fire apparition. "To share with Kuwabara something you both hold dear."
Hiei lost his ghost of a smile and stared hard at the redhead.
"I don't know what you mean. I needed a buffer. Without the girl present I wouldn't have had any reason to hold back. I could have actually killed him, would you have preferred that?"
"Of course not, Hiei. You are very generous for thinking of taking Kuwabara's well being into consideration."
Spinning on the heels of his black boots, Hiei turned his back to the silver fox in human skin.
He started walking.
Kurama followed.
"Why, you could almost say the two of you are friends now. You worked so well together."
"I will cut your lips off if you don't shut up."
Unfazed by the threat, Kurama continued to antagonize Hiei until the fire apparition finally caved under the weight of his annoyance and disappeared into the depths of the forest, nothing but a streak of black through the trees.
"Oh!" Yusuke smacked his fist into his open palm. You could piratically see the light-bulb flick on above his noggin. "I get it! They worked worked together not to hurt Yukina, because she's the only thing in the world that they both care about!
"Yes, dimwit. Thank you for the update."
"Ya know, you're kind of a bitch sometimes, grandma. But props to you for tying them up without tipping them off."
"I'm not here to coddle you. I'm here to get results."
"Whatever." Yusuke pushed off from the building and crossed his arms behind his neck. "Hey, you think you can teach me that trick sometime? I can see that being a handy spell to have in my arsenal."
Genkai's scoff turned into a racketing cough.
"And let you terrorize everybody? No. I'm not stupid."
"Aw, come on! It'd be funny and you know it!"
"It'd probably be hilarious."
"Right!? So you'll teach me?"
"No way in hell."
Friendship Bracelets: End