It had been a week and Yusuke was dirty and tired and still dazed. He took train after train bound for places more and more remote. Now he was out of money and stranded in the middle of Wyoming. The mob would never find him here. No one would find him here. He felt ridiculously out of place in his expensive suit and leather shoes, dirty and stained thought they were. There was nothing to be done now. A single tear traced a line in the dust clinging to his skin. This was a good place to disappear, a good place to die.

"Hey, what's the matter?"

Yusuke looked up to meet a pair of sympathetic eyes gazing at him from under a veritable brim of curled bangs. If circumstances had been better, he would have made fun of this guy. As it was, he spilled his guts. What did he have to lose?

"Hiei is dead and it's all my fault and Kurama and Karasu are probably dead too. If they hadn't tried to save me… I can never face the rest of the Family because they have to know it's my fault by now and it doesn't matter because the other family will kill me if I go back and…"

"Woah, woah," the cowboy cut him off. "It sounds like you've been through a lot. If you can't go back, you can stay with me as long as you need to."

"Really?" Yusuke sniffed. "But you don't even know me."

The cowboy smiled cheerfully. "We all look out for each other out here and I could use another cattle hand. My name is Kuwabara, by the way."

Yusuke returned the smile though weakly. "I'm Yusuke. Thank you, Kuwabara. I won't let you down."

"I know you won't." Kuwabara's grin hadn't wavered. "Let's get you to a room and into some sensible clothes. You look like an idiot in that suit."

"But you're wearing a suit too," Yusuke pointed out.

Kuwabara looked down at his own garb as if for the first time. "Oh yeah. No wonder my pants are riding up."

oOoOo

Yusuke passed two happy years with Kuwabara and the two bonded like brothers. It turned out that Kuwabara was a wealthy rancher and he shipped his cattle all over the country. At first herding the cattle was overwhelming. Not to mention, he'd never seen so much open space in this life let alone had free reign of it. He grew to love it though. Soon he was watching the ranch while Kuwabara was away on business. When Kuwabara was home, they would ride together and talk for hours as the cattle grazed. There was a pretty high turnover rate in the cattle hands but Yusuke stayed. He felt like he owed Kuwabara. He had fully intended to wander out into wilderness to die. Instead, he went into it with Kuwabara and got his life back.

Tonight was like many others. The two best friends sat in the porch under the stars, digesting a hardy meal of chili and corn bread. Kuwabara was going to leave on another trip in the morning.

"Did you remember to pack your cufflinks?"

Kuwabara looked sheepish. "I lost them."

"What about your other pair."

Kuwabara didn't answer but he really didn't need to by now.

"You can borrow mine but if you lose them I'll kill you."

"You're the best!" Kuwabara lunged in for a hug only to be pushed back into his chair roughly. "You know," he continued as though nothing happened, "I was sort of hoping you would come with me this time."

Yusuke shook his head resolutely. "No. I'd really rather not."

"Yusuke, you've been on the ranch for two years strait. Don't you want to get out a little bit?"

"I'm happy here," he insisted. "Where are you off to anyway?"

"It's a routine trip, just to a distributor in Chicago."

Kuwabara didn't miss Yusuke's alarm. "What's that matter? Is that were you're from?"

"Yeah. I can't go back there."

"Maybe you should go there. Then you'll see you don't have to be afraid. No one will recognize you anyway."

"You think?"

"You don't realize how much you've changed these past years, do you? You might not even see anyone you know. Chicago's a big city."

Yusuke pondered this new idea. He stood up abruptly.

"Fine. I'll go with you. I'm going to bed now."

O0o0o0o0o

Yay! Kuwabara enters the story. We are at the half way point now. This chapter was a little short and so will the next one but don't worry. I'm not flaking out on you. That's just how the flow of the story went. The entire story is not very long since it was meant to be posted in one chapter. It's just that a goal of 1000 words turned into 7000 XD