Hey readers! Welcome to yet another spontaneous oneshot done written by none other than yours truly! Thank you for clicking, and I hope you enjoy the story.

You can do this!

Like hell I can!

It's not that hard, just say it.

Not right now!

When, then?

I'll say it when-

"Kurama? Is something wrong?"

Jerked out of his mental argument, Kurama blinked and turned towards the ferry girl seated on the park bench beside him.

"No, nothing's wrong Botan. Why do you ask?" The fox said with a smile. Great, only fifteen minutes into spending time with Botan, and he'd started arguing with himself. Of course, it wasn't like he meant to do it; it had just become a bad habit over the past few weeks. Ever since he'd bitten the bullet and admitted to himself that he had fallen head over heels for the Ferry Girl, he'd been bickering with himself nonstop over whether or not he should confess his feelings. Yes, his love for her was pure and genuine, but would she feel the same? And if she didn't, would a rift open up between them? Torn into place, courtesy of one awkward fox? Kurama sighed inwardly. Nerves. He wasn't used to dealing with them on this kind of scale. Give him a complex algorithm, a superior opponent, whose skills were honed to a finer point than his, and he could solve both of those problems without breaking a sweat. But this...this was a whole new game.

"Kurama?" Botan asked, leaning forward, placing her hand over his.

At that moment, Kurama felt a flush of warmth rise in his cheeks. He could imagine the color of his face turning a light pink, continuing to darken until it matched the color of his hair. His heart began to pound, switching right over into an allegro tempo as gentle, lavender eyes locked onto his own ocular emeralds. The Ferry Girl leaned even closer, shortening the gap between them. Kurama resisted the almost overpowering urge to swallow.

"You seem a little spacey. Is something bothering you?"

Ah, this wonderful woman! All innocence and naïveté. This sweet creature's current concerns were only for his well-being, never mind the fact that she was the cause of his emotional misgivings. Putting forth what he assumed to be the most nonchalant countenance in the world, he smiled back at the object of his affections, placed his free hand over hers-creating a kind of hand-sandwich if you will-and forced himself to look into those cerulean shaded eyes without blushing further. Yes, he was indeed a man in love.

"Trust me, everything's fine. I guess...I guess I'm just tired is all," he removed his hand and gestured at the park around them, "it sure is a beautiful day."

Botan nodded, her gaze following his sweeping hand, taking in all the sights. The mix of ivory and pink as both apple and cherry blossom petals swirled in the breeze around them; the faces of happy children as they played tag within the small copses of trees, the fresh, cropped grass- all bathed in the warm glow of a mid-April sun, "Just perfect for sitting outside, enjoying the fresh air," Botan agreed.

She closed her eyes and inhaled, taking pleasure in the smell of the budding spring, "I'm so pleased Lord Koenma gave me the day off. And what's more," she smiled and turned towards him. Her eyes were lit with a glow that had nothing to do with the sunlight. Kurama felt his heart begin to slam against his ribcage.

"I get to spend it with you."

Heat consumed the fox's face, lighting it up like a casino sign in Vegas. His eloquent, high-level vocabulary eluded him, leaving him with his mouth hanging slightly ajar. Botan, who had noticed none of this, bit her lip and turned away.

"I mean, it's silly, but, i-it's just that I enjoy spending time with you. 'Cause...well, you're...oh, how do I put this?" the spirit guide agonized over the best way to form the feelings into words. Kurama smiled.

"It's okay Botan."

Botan looked at him. Kurama closed his eyes and wrapped one of her hands in both of his, "I like spending time with you too."

The Ferry Girl smiled, a shy rose beginning to bloom on her face. She closed her eyes and giggled.

"Aw, you're so sweet, Kurama." she said. She slid her hand from his grip and placed it back into her lap. Leaning over, she nestled her head on her friend's shoulder, "you're just a wonderful person, you know that?"

While Botan made herself comfortable, Kurama begged whatever deities that were being kind enough to lend a sympathetic ear to his plight that there was no way possible for her to hear how loud his heart was beating. Kurama glanced over at her. Bangs of sky blue fell towards his direction, hiding most of her right eye beneath an azure curtain. A stray piece of hair danced upon her cheek, twirled about by the breeze. Her eyes were closed, giving the impression that she was lightly dozing on his shoulder. Kurama stared, enchanted by the simple beauty in her content expression. When had he started falling for her? Although Kurama couldn't put an exact date on it, if he had to venture a guess (and his guesses almost always turned out to be correct), he would have had to say it was after the Dark Tournament debacle. He had been more than willing to die back then, more than willing to let Death's cold hands snuff out the flame of his life. And then he heard it. Her voice. She had begged him to get up, to open his eyes, to give her some sign that he wasn't ready to give in. As her cries of distress had grown louder, Kurama had forced his bleary, clouded eyes to find the source of the noise-and when they had landed on Botan's tear-streaked face, he realized how selfish he was being.

If I die now, he had thought, what will become of you? What will become of them? Of my mother, of Yusuke, of Kuwabara, of Hiei, of everyone else? By looking into those eyes, shining with tears and locked onto his still body, Kurama had realized that there were people who wanted to see him live, and that maybe, just maybe, he himself wasn't ready to give up on life just yet.

Looking back on that, Kurama felt he had to laugh. The embodiment of death had given him the urge to live. Ah, how ironic. He slid his gaze over to her to find her eyes half-open, staring at nothing in particular. It was as if she was lost in thought. In all honesty, he wouldn't have minded if she had stayed that way-for those half-lidded eyes coupled with the slight part of those rosy lips made his heartbeat begin its quick-step march all over again.

It's now or never, he told himself.

And so, Kurama clenched his hand into a fist, took a deep breath, and forced his mouth to form words.

"H-Hey, erm...Botan?"

Well, he tried. Damn anxiety all to hell! Why was this so difficult? Botan made a made a small noise that sounded like a tuneless hum and turned her head to look at him. The way the stray beams of sunlight made her skin and eyes glow nearly brought his heat to a complete stop. Her steady, unwavering gaze took a stab at his courage, and he glanced over at the iron railing on the bench.

"There's something I've been meaning to tell you for a while now..." Kurama trailed off, not sure how to put his confession into words. Oh sure, he'd planned everything else, but never could find the right way to make it sound good enough. After all, for all her typical girlishness, Botan, like him, was a practical person. Some cliche confession packed with promises of forever and comparisons to knights in shining armor would never fly with her. Well, not that it wouldn't fly, she'd just find it a little odd, and probably not very impressive, even a little, no make that a lot, cheesy.

So, all that being said, how the hell was he going to do this?

The only way he knew how: keep putting one foot in front of the other and to go with what his gut told him. Great plan, only its success rate was higher when the situation was one of battle and not one of love.

Kurama sighed. Great plan or not, it was the only thing he had going for him right now. Oh well.

"It's just that...over the past few days, I've realized something, and it-it something's that's rather important, and I need to share it with you."

From far away, from a world beyond the blind, frantic mice, racing to and fro that were his thought, he heard a rustle of fabric and felt Botan shift positions.

"And, I really, really wish I knew a better way to say this, but this awkward, bumbling approach is the best foot I've got to put forward..."

Again, that far away world tried to push in on his thought as he felt the phantom-like sensation of Botan's hand on his cheek, tilting his head, the faintest trace of her presence, growing stronger as within that far away world she began to lean closer.

"What I'm trying to say is, no what I want to say is Botan...I-"

That was the moment when Kurama's protective world of thought shattered and the phantom world of reality forced itself back into the forefront with an action no more simple than Botan placing her lips upon Kurama's ceasing his rambling and answering his unspoken inquiry with no words of her own. When she pulled away, grinning and giggling, Kurama placed a finger to his lips, incredulous.

"You just..." he began.

"Kissed you, yes." Botan finished, still grinning. She then leaned in and pecked him on the cheek, delighting in the bright blush elicited from the fox. Pulling back, she gave him a wink and poked the spot she had kissed, "And I love you too, Kurama."

He blinked at her, "So you knew that whole time what I was going to say." he said. Since when was Botan the perceptive one?

Botan chuckled, "Come Kurama, it was pretty clear to me with the way you kept blushing that you wanted to confess to me."

"Then why did you-"

"Because you're so darn cute when you're nervous that I couldn't resist letting you flail around like a fish caught on a hook." she said with a look so innocent, Kurama felt guilty about the brief flash of annoyance that had sprung up within him. Instead, he let an exasperated sigh hiss out from between his teeth.

"Is that so?" he asked, left eyebrow twitching.

"Yep!" Botan replied with a cheery smile. "But you know what?"

Kurama looked at her, "What?"

Quicker than his eye could follow Botan darted forward and kissed him again. This time, Kurama was fully aware and fully intent on giving to her what she was giving to him. By the time they parted, both were panting with faces aflame. Botan smiled and him and placed her hand upon his.

"You're my fish." she said, eyes glowing with such deviousness that Kurama had to exert all forms of self control to keep from pinning her down on the park bench.

Instead, he smirked and raised her hand, placing a delicate kiss upon it.

"If you're my hook, I'll gladly be caught any day."

Botan smiled and laid her head back on his shoulder as the two of them returned to enjoying their surroundings and the presence of one another.

Hmm, I'm not too sure about how strong that ending is. Other than that, I don't think it's too bad, what with my being away from FFnet for so long. And on that note...I'M SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SORRY! Just when I thought things had begun to ease up, either my high school or my concurrent class threw something at me from left field. But! Now that is all behind me as I have graduated the local educational asylum known as high school, yay! And so with this summer laid bare (barring a part time job with an easy workload), I have returned to you my readers and it is with much gusto I find myself slipping into my favorite hobby.