Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho. Therefore, if a copyright infringement case came up against me, I'd be screwed. And so would all of you.
With A Home For The Heart almost over, I thought I'd put something new out there for you guys to read.
I don't know what to say about this except that Kurama can pretty much pull anything off.
You Love Me Still
Chapter One
"How is it that you can wear a scarf and not look like an asshole?" asked Yusuke.
I looked over at my friend from behind my ice-cream cone. It was summer and yes, I was wearing a scarf. It wasn't one of those woolen scarves for warmth. It was a thin, light blue decorative scarf that I thought would look nice with my denim jacket, white t-shirt and blue jeans.
On the subject of clothing, Yusuke looked very handsome that day in his black so-tight-it-looked-painted-on shirt and low-rider black jeans. His hair was done in the usual style, so much gel it looked made of plastic and fit well with his characteristic smirk.
We were out for a walk in the park together, discussing nothing of importance, mostly catching up on what I'd missed while I had been away on vacation with my family.
"Earth to Kurama..." said Yusuke.
I looked over at him again. "Sorry, what was the question?"
"How come you can pull off wearing a scarf and not look like an asshole?"
"Ah, yes. Well, I think it has to do with my hair."
"That was really unhelpful."
I pulled the scarf off and wrapped it around Yusuke's neck. Then licked my ice-cream.
"See? I look like an asshole."
"Hmm..." I regarded him carefully. "Blue isn't really your color, I suppose."
"Yeah, that's what I always said when Keiko bugged me about my uniform." Yusuke put the scarf back around my neck. "Anyone else would look like a fruit-cake wearing that scarf."
"Oh, but Yusuke, I am a fruit-cake."
"What?"
"Didn't you know?" I licked my ice-cream again. I loved ice-cream. "I thought we discussed this...?"
"No, you never told me. Are you saying you're gay?"
I nodded.
"Congratulations!"
I rolled my eyes at him.
"I mean it, it takes guts to admit that."
"You know this from experience do you?"
Yusuke cleared his throat. "Not because I'm gay but because someone else I know is."
I tilted my head to the side, thinking. Wondering if it was someone I knew. "Really?"
"Yeah, you're not the only one. Hiei is too."
"Hmm... I thought he was in love with Mukuro."
"Please! Are you kidding me? Mukuro might be butch but she's not man enough for Hiei." He broke into a smile that held a small amount of sadness.
"There's something else, isn't there?"
"Yeah, Kuwabara too."
"What about Kuwabara?"
"He's gay."
"Oh! I never would have thought..."
"Me either, which is why I was so shocked when he admitted that he was in love with me." Yusuke kicked at the dirt. "I was a total ass about it too. I bet he'll never speak to me again."
"What did you say?"
"It wasn't what I said, it was what I did. I laughed at him. I thought it was a joke. It was just too... weird, you know? I mean, Kuwabara's supposed to be in love with Yukina, right? He's supposed to be straight."
"There's no such thing as 'supposed to be' Yusuke. If there was, this world would be a lot different. If everyone behaved the way they were 'supposed to' then there wouldn't be surprises. What kind of life is it when there are no surprises? What did you tell him, Yusuke?"
"I told him that I didn't mind but I wasn't into him that way." Yusuke flinched and I knew immediately that he wasn't telling the whole truth.
"It really isn't the best idea to lie to me, Yusuke. You see, when you lie, you release a hormone with a very distinctive scent and you just produced a vast amount of it in a short period of time."
"It doesn't work that way, Kurama. I don't like it when you call me on my bullshit."
"I'm just stating facts. Now, either you just lied to me, or you lied to both me and Kuwabara. There's something going on that you aren't telling either of us and I believe that at least one of us deserves to know the truth."
"Just let it drop, Kurama. Okay? I don't wanna talk about it."
"That's fine, it isn't me you owe an explanation to."
"I don't owe anyone an explanation. This stuff is my business."
"I think Kuwabara deserves to know that you lied to him about your feelings. Even if it means admitting it to yourself. Even if you don't understand them completely."
"When did you become a psychology major? I thought you dropped out of school."
"I did but there are things that I know without having to be told or have to learn from a text book. Tell Kuwabara the truth or run the risk of losing him. You don't want that."
"I don't want him to love me, Kurama. I don't want anyone to love me and I don't want to love him back. I don't want to love anyone. I want to be left alone."
"You can't mean that. No one wants to be left alone, it isn't in our nature as sentient beings to be by ourselves. That is why we form family-groups and-"
"Don't lie to me Kurama. I know you were alone for fifty years."
I gave Yusuke a sad smile. "The worst years of my life."
"Oh yeah?" Yusuke smiled ironically. "Which years were the best?"
"Age fifteen to eighteen."
"You met me, Hiei and Kuwabara when you were fifteen, what happened three years later?"
"We all went to the Makai and were separated."
"Right, that whole debacle."
"I'm surprised you know the word 'debacle.'"
Yusuke shrugged. "I read sometimes. Don't tell anyone. I'm going for my GED."
"Oh? Why?"
"I don't want to be a dead-beat my whole life. No one wants to hire a drop-out. Well,except your boss of course."
"My boss is my father. I hardly think that counts."
"How did you do that anyway?"
"Do what?"
"Accept him as your father? You call him father like he's your real dad."
"He married my mother when I was sixteen, until then, I had no father."
"No kidding?"
"Well, I had a father once, but he... he died a very long time ago. I don't remember him much. At least, not as Shuuichi. As Yoko, I remember him perfectly."
"Wait a minute. You have two memories?"
"I am essentially two people. Yoko and Shuuichi. My memories are stored twice, from human perspective and from demon perspective. I use my human perspective to look at the world for the most part. I don't really like my demon perspective. It tends to be too cynical and distrustful."
"Most people don't deserve to be trusted. I have a demon perspective too. It's never wrong and I hate that."
"What does your demon perspective tell you about Kuwabara?"
"That he'd be a great lover but doesn't have a lot of staying power."
"Meaning?"
"That he'll die in six or seven decades and I don't want to deal with it."
"So there is your problem. You're afraid to be involved with Kuwabara because you know you will lose him too soon."
"Yeah and I'll live a few dozen centuries without him. What kind of life is that? I don't want to have to live through what my dad did. Waiting forever for my true love to return from the dead so we could live happily ever after. I don't want to love anybody, Kurama. Not someone who's gonna leave me before I even finish one tenth of my life."
"You're afraid to have your heart broken."
"I don't think it will be any more fun the second time around, no. I'm not anxious for it to happen again."
"I could feed you cliche's and unhelpful words of wisdom but it wouldn't help anything at all."
"You mean that 'tis better to have loved and lost...' thing?"
I nodded.
"I have loved, and I have lost and I don't want it to happen again."
"You are far too young to be this jaded about love. It's too late to change the way you feel but perhaps Koenma may be able to help with the part about losing him."
"What do you mean?"
"How do you think Toguro became a demon?"
"Ew... I don't know."
"Koenma made him one."
"I thought the tournament committee did that."
"They had connections in Spirit World and forced Koenma's hand. Of course, Kuwabara would have to agree to it and eventually come back to the Makai with us... But I believe you need to have a chat with Kuwabara first."
Yusuke nodded. "What do I say to him?"
"Start with 'I'm sorry I lied.' Then just tell him how you feel."
"You make it sound so easy."
"Lies are hard to keep up, telling the truth can often make it a lot simpler then keeping up the lie."
"You're right. You always are."
"I was wrong about Hiei."
"That was too emotionally charged for you to deal with."
"What?"
"You figure it out, Fox-boy, you have all the answers. See ya later." He gave me a kiss on the cheek and walked off back the way we came.
I touched my face, the kiss felt like a burn but I knew the feeling had nothing to do with Yusuke and everything to do with what he said.
Now all I have to do is figure out what he meant by that...
Pairings should be obvious at this point. Convoluted but obvious. Please review?