A Thousand Times

"Why?"

For the life of him, Kuwabara couldn't figure out the reason behind Urameshi standing in his bedroom, a supposedly casual visit to his house. And mere days after acting oddly. Not the actions of a rival.

"Well…I figure…you and Keiko keep insisting on being part of my life. I know she's better off without me, she's way too smart for a guy like me…and if you're stupid enough to keep wanting to find me… I figured I should be stupid enough to go find you sometimes."

Kuwabara stared, eyes going wide at the farther implication of his rival not being just a rival. Urameshi kept his eyes on the wall to the right of him, the Megallica poster. He saw the other teen as just a rival, his gang being the friends to him, but… With how easily Yusuke seemed to defeat him every time, his rival had no real reason to take up on every single one of Kuwabara's challenges. Every single time Kuwabara sought out Urameshi to fight him, his rival never denied him the fight. Never.

He'd never really thought much over about it, the fact that Urameshi was never with any others, dismissing it as arrogance of his rival, thinking he too great compared. But Kuwabara knew Urameshi got picky on some of the idiots who challenged him. He had just thought like any other punk in the area, that Urameshi always agreeing to a fight against him made them rivals. Every punk in the area knew of their rivalry. But was that even what it was?

"But at least I'm not so stupid to score a measly seven," Urameshi snickered at him.

The color drained out of Kuwabara's face, then filled up with pure red. "Hey! It's not honorable to look through teacher's grade books! And what did you get then you punk?!"

Smirking, Urameshi balanced a pencil on the tip of his finger. "Twelve," he answered proudly.

Kuwabara felt the heat leave him and he collapsed lifelessly back into his chair. "Oh god, I'm dead."

Urameshi snorted. "Wrong. I'm not pounding your face in right now. Twelve is better than your 'I'm-so-stupid' score of seven. 'Sides, always been better at labs."

Kuwabara slumped. "Same. That's why I bought study books. None of my family's study methods help. Probably make my test scores worse," he muttered.

His rival, er, classmate, uh, fellow punk perked up. Perhaps he needed to decide what he thought of Urameshi later after all of this. "Like what sort of methods?"

Who also seemed to hear his lower tones earlier. He winced. "Eeeh, well, my sister's method is especially painful. Not a single one of these study books even mention her version of studying. So it probably isn't at all helpful."

"What's her method?"

Kuwabara scowled and Urameshi reached forward to poke at him with the finger not being used to balance the pencil. Urameshi grinned and waggled his eyebrows. Sighing, he gave up the answer, "Shizuru thinks bashing all the wrong answers out of me is best."

Unsurprisingly, Urameshi cracked up laughing. The previously balanced pencil rolled across the floor. "No wonder you're so quick to recover whenever I pound you!"

He stilled, standing tall, his fist still upraised at the other chortling away. "Uh…" What exactly was that supposed to be? A compliment? It was one of the things he prided on in his fights with Urameshi. The fact he could last longer against him and able to challenge him sooner than he noticed others were able to bounce back.

"I think we can just ask and answer questions from whatever, but if you want me to smack you over the head on every incorrect answer, I can." Urameshi snickered, lip twitching up at him.

He glared down at his rival and then grinned back, baiting. "So you want to play big sister?"

Kuwabara barked out into laughter as Urameshi choked, eyes going wide. "Hell no! You a freakin' idiot Kuwabara?! Does it look like I'm one of my mother's transvestite party friends?!"

"What the shit?!" Kuwabara swirled to gape at Urameshi.

Smacking the top of the Physical Science book, Urameshi agreed loudly. "That's what I said!"

Growing annoyed at the off topic discussions that somehow led to his rival's home life, Kuwabara covered his face with his hand, groaning. "So off topic."

Quick as he could, Urameshi responded. "You started it," he said sulkily back and slouched into the chair. Like a little child putting blame on anyone…oh, right. Kuwabara had kind of started it by sharing some of his home life to Urameshi. He frowned. The other had asked. Peering over at his rival over his hand, he watched the other scowl and flip the cover of the schoolbook back and forth.

Kuwabara didn't think rival fit this situation.

"Okay. Ask me a question. You know the answer to it, right?"

Pushing himself back up in the chair, Urameshi snorted. "Of course I do. I got the whole book in my hands and you don't. What chapters are we on?"

His eyebrow twitched. Urameshi was useless. Maybe not in a fight, but he was useless in this challenge. "Gimme! I was studying that properly!"

The next thing he knew was that Urameshi's bare foot was against his chest and he was unable to snag his Physical Science book back. Urameshi grinned, casually flipping through the book.

"Like I know the chapter," he sniggered. "But I do know what page it's on. Keiko didn't trust me to study without some sort of reminder and wrote the big question page numbers onto my arm. Why is the color of blood red?"

"Because of all the red blood cells! They color it," Kuwabara answered quickly. "That's easy."

"But what's the pigment?"

Kuwabara blinked at the other, and then it hit him. "Hemoglobin! I forgot!"

Leaning back in the chair lazily, Urameshi asked the next question from the book. "And what causes your blood to clot?"

"Platelets." He smiled at himself, proud that he seemed to be remembering all of the information. Somehow, it had sunk in and the panic he had earlier was eased. He knew this stuff after all.

Urameshi nodded. "Yes…good, good."

AN: Actual studying. With...Yusuke? Well, how did this still wind up happening?