To Serve and Protect
Chapter Three
Yuusuke had taken off his shirt. His skin was covered lightly with sweat and glistened in the sunlight. He was steadily working on the porch, on hands and knees, but looked up when Koenma emerged. His hair was still tousled from the earlier flight into the trees, and he brushed the fringe out of his eyes. "Hey, what's up?"
Koenma averted his eyes, looking uncomfortable for some reason. "I'm going to look around."
The teen stood quickly, setting his cleaning rag aside and went to him. "Okay."
"Aren't you supposed to be cleaning?" Koenma asked, still not looking at him.
Yuusuke was wondering if he should take it personally. "It's alright, I'm nearly done. She'll make me do it again tomorrow anyway!" he added, laughing softly. Not too long ago, this knowledge would've pissed him off.
He just wasn't the same boy he was back then.
"You don't have to come with me."
"I want to," he pressed, shrugging as if it meant nothing. As if he hadn't argued with Genkai about the whole thing a little while ago.
Koenma sighed, sneaking a glance at Yuusuke, almost shyly. "Alright, get dressed."
Yuusuke pouted. "Aw, c'mon, I'm all sweaty. It's not like I got enough shirts that I can just ruin them. I need to save that for my fights."
"I'm not walking around with a half-naked teenager. Put on the shirt, Yuusuke."
Yuusuke blinked, not understanding. "What're you talking about? I have my pants on…" As often as he did lose his shirt, walking around shirtless didn't seem all that unusual, and it wasn't like he had beer belly or anything. He was fucking compact.
But Koenma remained firm. "Put on a shirt or I'm going without you."
"Fine," the boy grumbled and snagged his shirt off the railing, slipping it over his head. He followed after Koenma as the former god headed for the stairs.
Sometime later, they reached the bottom of the stone steps. They didn't talk much on the long way down, or on the way to the bus stop.
Yuusuke checked his watch while they looked at the schedule. On it were the particular locations and times for this bus route. "Any place special you wanna go?"
"I have some things I need to do sooner rather than later."
Yuusuke shrugged a little at the mysterious reply. "Okay. You and Kurama with the vague answers, sheesh."
They waited as the bus drove up the winding countryside road and boarded together. Koenma took a seat beside a window while Yuusuke took the aisle side next to him without complaint. He slung his arm around the back of their seat and blatantly watched him.
Yuusuke knew he should pay more attention to where they were going, but instead he focused on Koenma, noting again those subtle differences. The JR tattoo, like the pacifier, was gone. Koenma's forehead was unmarked, at least as far as Yuusuke could tell. Then there were the other differences that he couldn't describe, though he couldn't be sure if those were merely his imagination. After all, it was only recently he had started seeing Koenma in his adult form. Before then he had always used his toddler form.
A few stops later, they reached Koenma's stop and left the bus together. They walked down the street toward the cemetery once he caught sight of it.
Yuusuke stiffened when he saw the name of the cemetery, and cursed himself for not paying attention to his surroundings. He knew this cemetery, and he didn't particularly want to be reminded of what was there.
Koenma entered the cemetery without pause, and since he didn't feel like explaining why he didn't want to go inside, Yuusuke followed.
Following him inside the fenced cemetery, Yuusuke shivered lightly at the backwash of sensation the former god suddenly emanated. "What the hell, Koenma?"
"Hm?" Koenma hummed absently.
Yuusuke glared. He didn't like being ignored. "What are we doing here?"
"Looking for help."
The teen twitched irritably. "I'm not enough?"
"It depends."
"On what?"
"What comes."
Grumbling, Yuusuke watched Koenma wander between the gravestones, his pride a little bruised. It wasn't that he thought Koenma was a weakling, but he took his promise to protect the former god seriously.
Koenma eventually came to a stop in front of an inner wall. "Help might be closer than I thought…"
Yuusuke blinked at him. "Huh?"
"Someone's been taking care of things here." He motioned around the cemetery like that meant anything.
The teen crept back to Koenma's side. "What're you talking about?"
Koenma glanced at him. "A psychic's been here. That's all."
"Oh." Yuusuke realized he wasn't just irritated at Koenma – which he was – but moreover he was just angry to be thereof all places.
Besides, Koenma didn't need any fucking psychics—he had him. (Well, anymore psychics. Kuwabara was supposedly psychic. That counted, right?)
"We can go now."
"Good," Yuusuke grumbled and turned around. Unfortunately, that was when Yuusuke caught sight of the grave out of the corner of his eye and couldn't stop himself from looking. His entire body froze up, just reading the damn name.
He hadn't been there since he was a little kid. Long before he'd met Keiko, even.
"What is it?"
Yuusuke ignored him for the moment. He let his feet carry him stiffly to the grave and knelt down in front of it, staring at the stone with its simple inscription. Just a name and two dates.
There as a pause, then he felt Koenma draw closer, and his voice was softer when he spoke next. "I'm sorry. I didn't know he was buried here."
"I never knew him," Yuusuke explained softly in return. "Died when I was a baby." He'd never told anyone that his father was dead. Atsuko had told Keiko when they were kids, but of course Koenma would know this about him. He supposed Botan knew too, but it had never come up.
"Stupid jerk," he continued. "It's his fault Mom turned into such a lush. Some of my teachers would always say that if he'd been alive, I wouldn't be such a delinquent. Jerks wouldn't even lower their voices."
"I didn't know that. Yuusuke…"
The boy pasted on a wide grin, not letting him finish. It made Yuusuke feel weirdly guilty to put that sympathetic expression on Koenma's face. "But if I hadn't been a delinquent, we probably wouldn't have met. None of this would have happened." Not all of the things that had happened since he became a Reikai Tantei were bad.
"I don't think," Koenma spoke softly, "you could ever be anyone other than who you are."
Yuusuke softened, his smile growing more real. He felt his ears growing warm, absurdly. "Think so?"
He nodded. "It suits you."
Yuusuke stood slowly, folding his hands behind his head in a casual gesture. "At least someone thinks so. Keiko wishes I'd stick around more, or at least graduate."
"That just means she's the odd one out, not you," Koenma said simply.
Yuusuke blinked and expected to get angry at the remark, yet it just made him thoughtful. Most of his life he'd been the "odd one" while Keiko had been the one to fit in with everyone. Yet in the past year, he'd surrounded himself with people who were just like him. They were people who understood the part of himself that needed to fight. They were outsiders too.
And Keiko went half catatonic watching him fight to the death with Toguro. It wasn't a bad thing, he thought. Keiko was normal and well-adjusted.
What wasn't normal was that he kept dragging her into stuff like that. His best friend in the world and he still put her in danger.
Well, he was going to just have to make it up to both of them—Keiko and Koenma.
"Ready to go back?"
Yuusuke nodded. He gave his father a cocky sort of salute before turning toward the entrance. "Do you think that's weird? Not wanting to fit in with normal people, I mean."
"Normalcy is relative."
"I hate normal," the teen grumbled, stuffing his hands back into his tight jeans. "I'd rather just be me."
Koenma nodded and smiled a little, which made Yuusuke grin foolishly for reasons he didn't really understand yet. It was just nice to see the former god smile.
Once they were out of the cemetery and back at the bus stop, Yuusuke checked the schedule again. "Looks like the next bus won't be for awhile. Waiting sucks."
"Mm."
"We're kinda close to my house," the teen went on, noting exactly where in his district they were. "You mind if we stop by so I can pick up some stuff?" If he was staying over at Genkai's, he would need a change of clothes. If he went around the temple in smelly clothes, Genkai tended to sneak attack with buckets of water dunked on his head.
This had happened before.
Koenma shook his head. "Not at all."
"Thanks, man." He crossed the street and Koenma followed him as he led the way to the apartment building he (occasionally) stayed at with his mother. The house they'd lived in most of his life had been burned down in a fire caused by an arsonist, shortly after he died. (Did they ever find that guy, anyway?) With the insurance money, they moved into a nice apartment after his resurrection.
"Mom, you home?" he called as he opened the door.
But Atsuko seemed to be gone. There was an empty sleeping bag on the floor that made that clear to her son.
Yuusuke rolled his eyes. "Probably out getting liquored up with trannies again."
Not that he cared what other people did, because he wasn't a bigot or anything, and he knew his mom was trying to be better. But he had seen addiction enough times in his life to know it was tough for most people to kick. Let alone his mother who wasn't used to not indulging herself.
Koenma blinked at his language and the teen grinned. "Not that I've got anything against transsexuals," he clarified out loud. "I'll beat them up the same as anyone else."
The former god sighed, but Yuusuke spotted a little amusement he was trying to hide. Grinning more, Yuusuke led him to his room and began packing some essentials into his trusty duffel bag. He had gotten a lot of use out of it in the last year but it was still in good condition.
Yuusuke could feel Koenma look around his bedroom and didn't mind so much until the former god stopped in front of the bookcase. He didn't have many possessions, but he did occasionally stop in a bookstore with Keiko and pick up a new manga.
When Koenma blushed, Yuusuke suppressed his own, knowing what he had found. "Uh… about the Boy's Love… Don't tell Kuwabara, okay? He'll start using homophobic insults without meaning to."
Koenma nodded, looking back and forth between the books and him, apparently speechless.
His Tantei laughed sheepishly, unable to help blushing now. "It won't bother me, but it'll bother Kurama, and Hiei will go nuts and start killing people. At least, I'd hope he cares that much if Kurama's upset…"
"He does," Koenma told him absently. "He still loves him even if he tries to hide it."
Yuusuke blinked, his curiosity driving away his embarrassment for the moment. "Wait… Hiei's the hardest person to read, ever. How do you know that?"
"Hm?"
"How do you know that Hiei loves Kurama?" Yuusuke pressed, walking closer. Could Koenma know things about their friends that he didn't?
It was just weird. Kurama and Hiei were… It was hard for him to describe. Not like Keiko or Kuwabara, but they were still important. In a different way. Sometimes, he thought he'd like to be a clever as Kurama, or as stubborn as Hiei. They were way older than him, had seen more of the three worlds than he probably ever would, and understood things he didn't. He depended on them and their strength.
Koenma's eyes widened."Just a guess," he mumbled.
"That wasn't a guess," Yuusuke argued. "You sounded certain."
"Well. Not entirely but I'm pretty sure…"
Yuusuke sensed Koenma's embarrassment and leaned closer. "C'mon, you can tell me. If it's a secret I won't say anything, promise."
Koenma just shrugged.
"Pretty please?" the boy wheedled. "I'll buy you an ice cream." He wondered if the former god still had his sweet tooth.
"It's nothing," Koenma answered slowly, "really. Just that Hiei hasn't run away yet."
"Mm-hm." Yuusuke didn't really buy this, but chose to accept it for now. He shrugged. "Yeah, that's a good point." He liked a good mystery sometimes, but he also had a feeling that pressing Koenma about this would get him nowhere. The former god was almost as hard to figure out as Hiei though and it left Yuusuke feeling very frustrated.
"Finished?"
"Yup!" Yuusuke snagged his duffle bag off the bed and, with it slung over his shoulder, led the way out.
TBC.
Endnote: Yuusuke's human father being dead was just kind of convenient for this chapter, and essential to his relationships with many of the older men in his life. We kind of have him look up to Hiei and Kurama in this story, and then later with Raizen, mostly because he never knew his father. Genkai, of course, fills a stable motherly roll that Atsuko isn't really capable of at the time.
