Kuwabara sat alone in his self-founded cat shelter. Years had passed since Kuwabara's youth. He'd graduated high-school with near honors, and got a college degree in General Studies. The decorations from his graduation party still hung on the walls, even it being a week after the party. He had never really known what he wanted to do with his life, so he didn't major in something he probably was never again going to use. Kuwabara had starred in his college football team, and would have made it to the play-offs if he hadn't torn a tendon in his left knee during a mission.
Cats surrounded him, and purred happily, jumping off of his legs, batting at each other, and attacking his foot. Kuwabara sighed tiredly. He wasn't normally the kind of guy who let things get to him, but for some reason, almost overnight, everything seemed to bother him. He loved these cats with ever fiber of his being, but they required so much care and it took a large portion of his take-home pay just to feed the poor abandoned creatures. Deep in his soul he knew he couldn't keep this up forever. No matter how hard he tried, or how much he tried to pretend he was invincible, it just wasn't so. He cared for the kittens alone, and didn't have money enough to pay an employee.
Kuwabara knocked one kitten off of another, and watched, bemused, as it tumbled and looked around confusedly. Some of the kittens, and Eikechi, the old, wise, mother cat, pounced in now that there was a vacant spot on Kuwabara's leg. Eikechi had once been a rotund cat, but Kuwabara put her on the special healthy-cat brand name food that guaranteed a slimmer cat in just five weeks. It had been four years, and she was still on the pudgy side. She was Kuwabara's first cat, and still, even after high school, she played with the vigor of a cat three times her minor.
Even with all the love he received from the kittens, thoughts of letting his team down swirled through Kuwabara's mind. Kuwabara's youth seemed to be running away from him. His injured knee held him back from his potential, and recently he'd been feeling his knuckles grind together. He was 23 and getting arthritis. That had to be unnatural. It hurt his chest to think about slowing the team down, being a burden to the others, and his chest panged even more when he thought about them babying him as they did. They downplayed how much of a burden to them he really was. They were pitying him, and he couldn't stand for that. His honor, his very pride would not allow such cruelty.
He was getting older, he was slowing down. He may not of been thirty or forty years, but running in league with demons as he did, he felt like he was over the hill, and staring at his death bed. He had to be honest with himself; he couldn't keep this up forever. Sooner or later Hiei would mention it, call him a feeble, old man, and Kuwabara would snap - or worse - he'd agree. Kurama was the worst of them, helping him along when his knee felt like it was going to give out, giving him special herbs to make it hurt less, doing all he could to make sure the others didn't notice how very far he was falling behind them.
Kurama's kindness hurt more than his honesty.
Kuwabara knew he had only two choices, he could let the cat shelter go, and see more of his beloved feline friends dead in the streets, or he could quit the team and not be a burden to his friends any longer. He knew he couldn't put these cats out on the streets again, they didn't deserve that, and he knew it was too much for his truly weak soul to take to let his only friends just slip by.
His pride and his honor code was the only thing that held him in a semblance of sanity these days. He knew he could be broken easily, one harsh word out of Hiei, and he would just walk away, take the hint and disappear. He knew that was a favor he was willing to do for the cold fire demon.
Kuwabara stood, refilled the cat bowls, placing the diet food specially aside for the portly queen, before slipping on his shoes as he prepared to leave for the night.
"Be good. Don't start a nuclear war." Kuwabara thought of more things to warn them about. "Don't throw up, or pee on the carpet, or lure poor unsuspecting dogs in here and then strip them to the bones, or order pizza."
The sun had long past set when Kuwabara exited the cat shelter. He wrapped his dark blue scarf around his chin, and buttoned up his light brown coat, stuffing his bare hands into his pockets.
He knew he could be shattered easily, and he knew right then and there that the daily mail, and monthly bills had finally done him in. It was time to stop playing children's games, he told himself, and it was time to start paying the man.
"Oh, hello, Kuwabara." Koenma greeted kindly, jumping off of his chair, and wandering to the front of the desk to look up at him.
"Hey, Koenma." Kuwabara smiled remorsefully.
"How's that cat shelter going?" Koenma asked, happy to have an excuse to stop working. He didn't care what his distraction was, but he would milk it for all it was worth.
"It's not doing so well." Kuwabara spoke honestly, shrugging his coat covered shoulders.
"I'm very sorry to hear that. If there's anything I can do, really ANYTHING I-"
"Don't worry about it, it's nothing I can't handle." Kuwabara held his hands up defensively.
"Well, if that's the case." Koenma hopped back up in his seat. "I assume you came here for a reason?"
"Yeah, I have some news, probably good news."
"Finally! It's about damn time one of you came to me with something that wasn't life threatening, team threatening, or a dire emergency!" Koenma smiled behind his binky.
"Uh… Yeah, about that… I can't go on missions." Kuwabara didn't know exactly how to word it without Koenma damning him to hell for eternity.
"So, you want a vacation?" Koenma asked, amused and confused by Kuwabara's vague news.
"Yeah, a permanent one." Kuwabara said
"Permanent?" There was an audible gulp. "Permanent?!" and then there was the very loud, audible sound of rage. "What in the seven hells are you thinking?!"
That was George's cue to rush in with a large stack of papers. "Koenma, sir-" As soon as George saw Koenma's red, angry face, he dropped the papers, turned heel and ran for cover.
Kuwabara didn't say a word, he knew well enough to let Koenma fume without interruption. In a minute or so God Jr. would calm himself and think logically.
It was a long minute before Koenma straightened himself. " Are you sure?"
"Yeah. I gotta be apologizing since the Tournament is coming up. It's my two week notice, you could say."
"You do know the tournament is in a month, right?" Koenma asked, more urgently, afraid Kuwabara would leave before the tournament, and leave him and Botan to fight. "Where am I going to find replacement fighters on such notice?!"
"Made sure I got here early enough so you couldn't catch me on technicalities." Kuwabara smiled at his wittiness. It was actually his sister's comment that spurred on his early retirement, though he'd take the credit himself this time.
"Yukina will be there..." Koenma tried to lure him.
"Tell her I said hi, and she still needs to return that book I lent her." Kuwabara shrugged.
"Y-You can't just leave! What will Yusuke think of you? Worse, what will Hiei say of you?!" Koenma tried worriedly. "Kurama will worry! You don't want that, so stop being a wimp and put up with it for just another month! Please!"
"Look at yourself before you point at others." Suddenly Kuwabara's sadness turned into a murder-serious anger. "It takes a man to be honest enough with himself to understand when he can't get the job done, when he is only a burden on the people around him. Think about it like occupational seppuku." Kuwabara put his hands in his pockets, his seriousness not fading, but growing stronger. "You know I can't do this anymore, and who would watch the cats while I was at the tournament, anyway? I can't just leave 'em alone. I'm sure Genkai wouldn't mind joining in again, she's been kind of bored lately with the whole being dead thing." Kuwabara sighed, and looked slightly uncomfortable in this situation.
"You can't leave!! You can't!!" Koenma bawled. Kuwabara assumed it was only because he knew how very weak he was and figured he couldn't make it in a fight.
"I have to, I don't have a choice anymore. You can damn me to hell and it wouldn't change my decision." Kuwabara looked at his hand, then at his knee, at the source of what was causing him such pain. "Tell the guys, and give 'em my regards."
Kuwabara waved one last time, turned, and began to leave.
"Wait, Kuwabara, think this through!" Koenma begged. "Please, you can't just quit! I can't believe you'd fail your friends!"
Kuwabara looked back, angrily seething. "I can't keep up, okay?"
Koenma physically recoiled. He hadn't known Kuwabara was having such a hard time of it. He had told the Junior God that his knee had healed to perfection, that his hands didn't hurt him as much as it looked like they did. Why had Kuwabara lied to him?
"They have energy to spare, and I don't, alright? I can't go on pretending everything is okay when my body is falling apart."
"K-Kuwabara," Koenma could barely speak. His heart sank in his chest. "I didn't know-"
"Yeah, 'cause I didn't want you to. I'm crafty when I need to be."
"That's why I believe you should stay." Koenma's eyes welled up with tears.
"Don't be a big baby while the door is open, or dear ol' father will never forgive the embarrassment." Kuwabara noted.
"Can you tell me what spurred this on so suddenly?"
"The bills I couldn't pay, the medical costs, the cat shelter, all of it. They'll be fine without me holding them back. We both know they don't need me springing traps on them, lagging behind, and getting in over my head. With my leg, and my hands I've been nothing more than a burden to them, so they'll be fine without this feeble old man. Who needs a human on a demon team, anyhow?"
"Was it what the demons in the Makai say about you? I thought you'd have thicker skin than that, Kuwabara."
"Nah, it's not what anyone says. More that I can't keep the cat shelter during the evenings, work during the day, and fight at night. It wears me out. I need sleep, I need rest, I need to eat, and do other daily activities. Them? They can go forever, while I'm trailing behind telling them I'm doing it to watch their back, not so they don't see me when my knee gives out. I'm just not capable of keeping up anymore. I've trudged on this far by pushing the limits of my body, and I've pushed it too far. Now I'm just holding them to the ground when they know that without me they can soar. They're pitying me, and that's worse than their honesty."
There was a silence. Everyone in the mailing, filing, and shipping department could hear through the open door. Phones rang, and no one answered them.
" I'm just a human, Koenma, I'm just a goddamned human. The only thing worse than being a burden are those who let me." The ogres and reapers started gathering by the door. "I'm not something to be pitied and taken care of, that I can do for myself. But I can't keep up, or watch out for others when I can barely hold my own in a one on one fight, no less a crowded cavern full of angry demons who want to eat my face." The audience seemed to grow. "Humans have limits, and no matter how much I try to deny it - try to fight it - pretend that I'm still young and capable - I've passed my physical limit years ago. I'm a C class and we all know that." There was slight murmuring from the ogres in the hallway. "The guys can go on without me, I've always known that. I know that I will not be able to see them again, likely ever. It's the way classified projects work, I'm aware. So let's assume I'm in more pain than you are in fear of having to fight. So stop crying over a stupid fight you'll have to be in, you can handle it. You're wily like a wolf, so I have no doubt you'll pull through in the end."
"If that is your final choice, then so be it. You are no longer allowed to approach your… ex-teammates until the day you die. You are no longer allowed to come to this realm until you die. You are not allowed to associate with any demons you met during your missions here unless they approach you first." Koenma was reading him his rites before he executed him, or that's at least how it sounded to Kuwabara. "You are not allowed to talk to any non-makai, nor Spiritual Realm being until you die. You may not contact us, tell any others about us, talk to non-insiders about us, or you will be restricted to a mental institution for the safety of the worlds."
"Yeah. I got it. From this night on… I'm just another lousy human." Kuwabara turned, and left. The door as it closed sounded like a guillotine.
All ties had been severed.
"Why didn't you tell him how much stronger he has gotten?" Botan walked in from the door.
"Why didn't you tell him that we needed his mind? That we could repair his body to it's youthful state?
"Because he had made up his mind. No matter what I could have said, it wouldn't have changed a thing." Koenma rested his head on his desk.
Kuwabara decided not to head home, but back to the shelter, it was the only place he could have peace of mind. Kuwabara needed the cats right now, he needed the comfort they provided him, the luxury of going his own pace, minus the times his knee wouldn't cooperate during lunch time.
Kuwabara's sadness was only matched by his absolute anger towards himself. His mind was sharp, his psychic abilities were unsurpassed, but his body was giving out on him, and that made him hate the life he'd been granted.
Kuwabara sat on the couch, and the cats ran to him, pouncing to be the first to be pet. He napped there for a while, before hunger woke him. Kuwabara walked to the kitchen, and opened the fridge, only to find a tom-cat sleeping there. The strange cat was not frozen to death, he just overheated easily, so the fridge was his favorite spot to be. Kuwabara opened a fresh can of cat food, and poured it into four bowls, for the cats before feeding himself a simple turkey sandwich. Kuwabara set the bowls down, and sat next to the bowls as he ate his meal, admiring the cute faces of the cats that loved him no matter what.
When the cats were done, he poured what was left into a cup with a lid, and put it back next to Debars , the cat in the fridge. Kuwabara sat back on the couch with the cats, and fell asleep, snuggled by a million warm fuzz-balls.
The doorbell was the next thing that roused Kuwabara from his sleep. Probably some pranksters, or some children who found a hurt kitten on the side of the road. Kuwabara stood, clad in his pjs. Yusuke stood outside, his hands in his pockets, a angry face, glaring squarely at the doormat, which said "Cats Welcome, humans ... Not so much."
"Hey, what are you doing here?" Kuwabara asked "What time is it? 3:26?"
"Yep." Yusuke said, knowing Kuwabara always knew the time, and always knew the temperature, and which way to go, or what was safe and what wasn't, because his sixth sense was that strong.
"Something wrong? Wanna come in?" Kuwabara asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes
"No time." Yusuke said frankly.
"Why not?" Kuwabara asked.
"We got a mission. Someone's been killing priests in the Makai. We figure it's cult or clan based." Yusuke said, looking at Kuwabara questioningly. "I always ring your doorbell at 3 something for a mission."
"Not anymore, ya don't."
"Yes, forever I do, and you got nothing to say against that, got it?" Yusuke growled defensively.
"Yeah, I do." Kuwabara spoke before Yusuke could continue, saddened by the words he knew had to come out of his mouth. "I've retired. I no longer have any connections with the Spirit realm, or the Makai. I couldn't physically pass through the barriers if you shoved me through one."
Yusuke looked genuinely shocked, and kind of hurt. Yusuke couldn't understand why he quit, he loved it, didn't he? Kuwabara always seemed happy, and was a great help to the team as of late. His psychic abilities were multiplying ten-fold by the day, it seemed, so much so he could give Hiei a headache without even opening his mouth! Or maybe that was just an inherent talent of his. Kuwabara had been an irreplaceable part of the team since he joined. His sense of justice, honor, kindness, and most importantly, direction, had saved their asses more times than Yusuke cared to count.
"W-Why? Is that even possible?" Yusuke asked, sounding more hurt than he let himself look.
"It's for everyone's benefit. Let's leave it at that." Kuwabara wanted to make as light of this as he could.
"No, now tell me why, dimwit!" Yusuke bristled.
"I'm getting older while all of you are staying young. It's a natural aging process, just sped up twenty or thirty years. I guess I've been wearing myself out trying to make it look like I can keep up with you demons. I'm just a human, Yusuke, and pretending otherwise isn't helping anyone." Kuwabara used his leg to block the cats from escaping.
"B-but you've been doing so good lately, you really solved the Juade case, practically by yourself. If anything, we're trying to keep up with you and act like we helped." Yusuke said.
"My mind is getting sharper, but my body is getting older. I solved the Juade case based on thought alone. You guys did most of the grunt work." Kuwabara pushed the cats back inside, clicking his tongue as a stern 'no' to them. "Kurama could have figured it out."
"In a couple of days, yeah, b-"
"No, man, it isn't like that anymore. I can't run around playing games, chasing demons, and solving puzzles in the middle of the night with you. I'm in over my head already. I'm swamped at work.. I have responsibilities now, I'm not a care-free kid no more. I have to work at the corporation, and keep up the cat shelter, with all that, and going on missions, sorry, man, I can't do it." Kuwabara closed the door, and stepped outside.
"What about your responsibility to the team? To the lives you've saved?"
"Yusuke," Kuwabara said the words they both feared most. "I don't have a team."
Kuwabara stared evenly into Yusuke's eyes, not backing down. Yusuke broke the connection, and glared at the ground.
"You better get going, and tell the guys, 'cause I guess when I told Koenma to tell, he musta forgot." Kuwabara shrugged. "I guess I'm more forgettable than I thought." Kuwabara laughed nervously.
Yusuke just looked down sadly, and sighed. "Then... I'll... see you around."
"You'll see me, but I won't see you." Kuwabara closed the door in Yusuke's face..
The informal goodbye hurt Kuwabara more than he thought mere words could, knowing for a fact he would not see Yusuke again for a while. Kuwabara sighed, and looked down into his shirt pocket, to see a kitten sleeping happily, and purring contently.
"Don't tell me you lost him?" Kurama asked.
Yusuke just glared. "He's sick."
"If you think I buy your bullshit, you're mistaken. I've tried to kill that kid with diseases a thousand times. Believe me, he isn't sick." Hiei growled.
Yusuke grabbed Hiei by the neck, and shoved him into a tree, choking him. "If I said he is sick, he is sick, okay?"
"Yusuke! Don't be irrational. Hiei is as concerned as you are, he just shows it differently." Kurama intervened.
"Fine, whatever." Yusuke let him go.
The mission went horribly, the team tried using the 'trial and error' tactic, since Kuwabara wasn't there to point and say something dumbly heroic. By the time they nabbed the murderer a week and four days later, Kurama was a bloody wreck, Hiei's shirt was pink, and 'Flamer' was written across his forehead. Yusuke accidentally blew up a demon cow, and fell down an elevator shaft after opening a door and taking a precautionary step forward. They had been captured twice, and escaped each time barely with their lives, and with a little less sanity than when they entered.
When the group got to Koenma's with the murderer's head in their hands, they were in bad shape. Sure, they'd live, but they'd be sore in the morning, and for several to come.
"So, what is the real reason couldn't make it?" Kurama asked, more than a little peeved that they'd unnecessarily been put through to much agony.
"Yes, I want to know why I murdered him." Hiei growled, and this time Kurama didn't try to correct him.
"Look, he's uh... sick..." Koenma lied horribly.
"We've ruled that out, since Hiei decided to get him immunized from all the Makaian and Earth bound diseases so he wouldn't be getting the sniffles at every turn." Kurama growled "Kuwabara hasn't been sick once in his life, it is doubtful he'd start now!"
Koenma knew that if he told them Kuwabara retire, he'd get chewed out for letting him quit, and he wasn't ready to have an earful of angry demons ranting about singed hair, and a pink shirt.
"I'm leaving." Kurama growled at Koenma's nervous silence and walked out, Hiei trailing behind him.
"You should just tell them that he died. It would be better for all of us." Yusuke said sadly.
Yusuke wasn't angry anymore, he was just sad that he wouldn't be able to see Kuwabara anymore. Sure, once a month he could stop by with a kitten that took him three weeks to chase down, or one he bought from a store. He could maybe convince Kuwabara to go on a kitten-based mission, but that was ridiculous, and this brand new grown-up Kuwabara would probably not agree, even if it was for kittens. Kuwabara was gone from his life now, and he didn't know what to do with himself without the oaf to set him off.
Kuwabara groaned as the doorbell rang repeatedly. He picked up the cats on his lap, and put them on the floor, almost tripping over them as he tried to walk. He had just gotten in from work, and was more than his fair share of worn out, and exhausted. Kuwabara was the Assistant CEO of a stock company, he had gotten there through sheer hard work, and a letter from his father. Kuwabara got a good check of $1700.00 every two weeks, and that was with the taxes, mortgage, and finances already taken out, but it took lots of overtime and ass kissing to get there as quickly as he did.
"Hello?" Kuwabara answered the door.
"Hi, I have a cat here, that I just can't take in. Horribly allergic, you know the drill. I'd really like you to take him, and find him a good home. I heard you are very good with cats." None other than Kurama stood holding a little tiny kitten that fit in the palm of his hands.
A beautiful calico male. It was obviously a male, and he was light brown, black, and white, Kuwabara led Kurama in.
"Does he have a name?" Kuwabara asked.
"No." Kurama said "I just found him."
Kuwabara smirked at Kurama's lie. "Yusuke caught him, didn't he? He used cheese, the little bastard!" Kuwabara laughed
"Yes, you are correct." Kurama blushed embarrassedly, for both being caught, and his inability to catch a kitten himself.
Kurama stayed an hour, but when he was with Kuwabara he totally
forgot to ask why he wasn't there for the mission. Kurama left without an answer, but with a smile on his face. Kurama was home and in bed by the time he realized his idiocy.
Later that same night, Kurama rang the doorbell to Kuwabara's cat shelter, but there was no answer, Kurama called, and only got his answering machine, saying that he was probably at work, and gave a number to contact him at if it was an emergency. Kurama knew that this was no emergency, and didn't want Kuwabara to be fired.
Kuwabara hung his head in exhaustion, typing lazily. Kuwabara had never seen himself as the big-office-with-a-window-and-fridge-and-an-assistant-with-a-never-ending-bar-tab-and-also-he-did-dry-cleaning-free kind of guy, he had always been a construction worker at heart. Kuwabara took a large swig of coffee out of his mug. He already missed fighting the big baddie, the missions where he just couldn't go on and had to push his body past it's limit just to see how far it could go, his team- wait... They weren't his team any longer, he was not a part of it anymore, he was not a Spirit Detective, he was just a office worker who ran a cat shelter.
He was normal. A number in a file on a piece of white paper among millions of other white sheets and numbers. He wasn't in constant contact with demons, he wasn't in contact with "god" or "The grim Reaper". He was just a normal kid starting life out on his own.
"Uh, Kuwabara, sir, you have a visitor, he's here about Project: God Jr.. Should I let him in?" Kuwabara's secretary asked
"Sure." Kuwabara chuckled, it was obvious who it was, it was one of his team mates.
Which one would be anybodies guess. He knew it couldn't possibly be Kurama, he had enough common sense not to get him fired. It probably wasn't Hiei out to get him fired or murder him, because there would be witnesses. So he deduced it was Yusuke being as reckless as always. His team was surely unpred-
There, he did it again, they weren't his, and he didn't belong to it. Kuwabara was shocked when he saw Yusuke approach in a business suit. It wasn't Yusuke actually being there, but how nice he looked in a three piece gray suit. It was one expensive suit Yusuke sported. He wore it like a pro, though, and Kuwabara found himself straightening his own plain black tie trying to not look like crap next to Yusuke.
"What're you doing here?" Kuwabara chuckled. "And why are you wearing that?"
"I had to look businessy to get into this joint. I'm here to convince you to come back." Yusuke took the seat in front of Kuwabara's desk. Kuwabara closed the door.
"Sorry, Yusuke, I'm can't go back to you guys." Kuwabara sat down in his cushy chair.
"I never asked you to, I wanted you to come back to see Koenma, he's scared out of his wits, man, Kurama couldn't help, Hiei was hopeless, I don't know why we asked him, and you know I'm no good for pep-talks. Do you know why he is so scared?" Yusuke asked
"Since I quit, there are two spots you have to fill, not just one, and Koenma will have to be one of them since George is being an announcer, and everyone else in unable to for some reason. Koenma doesn't want the crap beaten out of him this year, and he'll probably also have to send Botan in, but only as place fillers. If you guys are unable to fight, they'll have to go in." Kuwabara chuckled. "Jeez, he's such a baby!"
"That's it?! We're not even going against Toguro this year, since they pulled out."