35

I finished up my summer job last week and moved home this past weekend. It's really nice to be back in my own place, and to have some time off before school starts again. I'm going to the beach next week and super pumped! Do any of you have any fun summer plans?

ChuyaDud: Haha yes, it's taken me a while to get used to not seeing my updates in the main section; sometimes I still think 'oh no it didn't go through!' Shizuru is only two years older than Kurama so I think it would have been a bit weird, but nothing scandalous. I definitely see him going for older women, much to his mother's discomfort, lol. And poor Kuwabara, I feel like he's always the one that gets the worst surprises!

Kitsune Kiyoko: Thanks! Yusuke can be pretty scary when he wants to be! But Chouko definitely won't escape for long.

Have: Have you seen YYH the Abridged Series on Youtube? I totally crack up every time 'Poems with Hiei' comes up.

Catharina M.: I've thought for a while if he went for any of the girls from the series it would be Shizuru because she's often the most level-headed, and there's a couple times where he saves her during the Sensui Arc that made me think 'they'd totally do it.' But I don't think it would work long-term and that's why I generally ship him with OCs too. I didn't mean to imply Shizuru had been attacked when they were together, but that Kurama kept thinking about how she'd been hurt before and didn't want that to happen again. And thanks! It's a lot of fun to give Chouko weird personality quirks, like a love of lace, technology and the Great American Songbook.

Kurama enters the apartment though the living room window and is shocked to find Yusuke up and eating breakfast. Yusuke lounges next to the small table, watching Kurama's even smaller TV.

"Did you sneak out to hook up with your girlfriend?" Yusuke asks, pointing his chopsticks up at Kurama as the latter slides over the windowsill.

"No," Kurama says because technically it's true. The reason for his leaving and what may or may not have happened while he was gone are two separate things. Yusuke sets down the bowl of rice and looks him over skeptically.

"Man, you have grass stains on your knees. What the hell were you doing?"

Kurama glances down. There's only a small green smudge on one pant leg, not the sort of thing Yusuke would normally notice. "Yusuke, I have to go meet a professor this afternoon, so you and Kuwabara will have to go to Akihabara without me."

"Kurama, grass stains and you smell like organges," Yusuke says, getting up and gesturing at Kurama's knees, undeterred. "Who the hell were you hooking up with?"

"I may have run into Chouko, but—"

Yusuke grins and punches Kurama in the arm. "I didn't know you had it in you, you dog! Outside too! Where the hell—did you just hook up in a park?"

"Yusuke, we were not hooking up. We were just talking."

"Uh huh. Talking. Sure."

"She's going to come to dinner with us on Saturday."

Yusuke grins and throws his arm around Kurama's shoulders. "Great! I can't wait to see what kind of trouble you've gotten yourself into! I always thought you were too smart to get mixed up in a relationship but I'm happy to see you can be just as dumb as me and Kuwabara."

"Yusuke—"

"What sort of meeting are you going to? Are you getting an award?"

"I highly doubt that."

"So you're probably getting an award. That's great! What did you do, out-nerd all the nerds at computer school?"

"I don't actually know what the meeting is about."

"Maybe it's not an award, they're just going to crown you king of the nerds. I bet Kaito's pissed, he's been trying to get that title for years."

Kurama can't help chuckling at that.

After he finishes eating Yusuke heads off to meet Kuwabara in Akihabara and Kurama breathes a sigh of relief. They'll spend hours in the stores and arcades, safely not intruding on another ward leader and possibly even cleaning up some of the riff-raff. In the meantime he can go find out what the problem is with his professor. And, if something's really wrong, apparently Chouko can fix it.

It's muggy out by the time Kurama leaves and the heat forms a stifling blanket. He's grateful for the air conditioning when he finally gets to campus. The grounds are eerily empty. The one person he spots as he walks across the grounds is a gardener, off in the distance, and there isn't any sign of another person until he finds his way to a hallway of offices. Most of the doors are closed but here and there are signs of life. He stops at Tanaka's office and knocks.

"Come in Minamino and have a seat," he says without looking up. The human is balding and mildle aged, with a paunch. Sometimes he'd show up to teach with his shirt half untucked, but unlike Kurama's highschool teachers this man is at the top of his field and has a sharp mind even the demon fox respects.

Kurama does as he's asked and waits patiently while Professor Tanaka finishes sending an email and glancing through some documents. When he's done, he pulls a piece of paper from a drawer and slides it across the desk. Kurama doesn't even have to lean forward to recognize it: it's a photocopy of one of the pages from his test covered in his neat handwriting.

"Would you tell me what you wrote there in the margin?" Tanaka says, watching Kurama carefully.

He's clearly holding back his emotions but Kurama can't quite tell which ones. Kurama leans forward and looks at the scribbles in the margins. Sometimes, he's noticed, when he's excited or distracted, his handwriting changes. It's not the perfect modern schoolboy script of Minamino Shuichi. Instead the characters are more fluid with a subtle flair; it looks more like an antiquated script than it should.

"It was just an idea I had," he says, glancing up. "A multi-part authentication system."

"With encryption?"

"Yes." Kurama glances down at the page again.

"This algorithm," his professor says, leaning forward, eyes fixed on Kurama as he taps at Kurama's scrawl across the bottom of the page. "Where did you get it?"

"I thought of it."

"You—you just thought of it? What's it based on?"

Kurama shrugs. He's not about to say ancient demon puzzle boxes. "A mix of things I've read I suppose, I couldn't tell you off the top of my head."

He realizes a second later that he shrugged and wants to hit himself. He doesn't shrug. Minamino Shuichi doesn't shrug. Chouko is even influencing his body language now.

Professor Tanaka sits back, lacing his fingers together and staring down at the paper between them.

"I should congratulate you, you made the highest score on this test—of the last five years."

"Thank you, Professor," Kurama says. "I enjoyed the class." For one of the few times in his life this isn't a lie.

"Minamino-san, what are your plans for this summer?"

"I was going to look for a job in the city."

"I'm looking for a research assistant. How would you like to work with me?"

Kurama's taken startled but he tries not to let his surprise show.

"Thank you. I would be honored to."

Professor Tanaka waves a hand dismissively. "Minamino, I think you're going to put me out of a job. But maybe you'll help me have something to retire on." He chuckles and puts the paper away in his desk before leaning forward, a smile on his face. "I'll send you more details by email. We're going to have to get you security clearance, so you might have to ask you parents to send down your paperwork if you don't have it with you."

"Security clearance?" Kurama says, taken aback again.

"I'd advise against telling your classmates about that, or your friends."

Kurama nods and they exchange some information before he's dismissed. Of all the things he was expecting, none of them was a job offer.

"Where's your crown, Nerd King?" Yusuke demands when he and Kuwabara show up at the apartment, their arms full of bags.

"I keep telling him, Kaito already claimed it," Kuwabara says and grins. "Also you're way better at seeming normal than him so I don't think you could be the king of the nerds."

"That's debatable!"

Kurama smiles and lets them go on a bit longer.

"Actually, he wanted to offer me a job," he says when they finally give him a chance to get a word in.

"What?"

"Yes, as his research assistant."

"Congrats!" Kuwabara shouts. "I knew it would be something awesome!"

"Congrats Kurama," Yusuke says, but far less enthusiastically.

"Thank you both," Kurama says, and then because he fells guilty he adds, "I'd been meaning to ask if you two wanted to plan another trip to Genkai's temple?"

"Totally!" Kuwabara says, hitting his fist into his open palm. "

Yusuke brightens as well. "Yeah, I can't wait to watch you fall on your face trying to run up the steps again."

"That only happened once, Urameshi! Can't you let it go?!"

"Let it go? The image is seared into my brain!"

Kurama chuckles and tries not to think about what happened the last time they were there. One bad coincidence doesn't mean anything.

"What'dya think the over-under is on getting Hiei to show up?"

"Zero, unless you have anything you can bribe him with," Kuabara snorts.

"Maybe I can talk to Mukuro," Yusuke says and Kurama can't help a snort as well.

"Are you going to invite her too?"

Yusuke falls over laughing. "I should! Can you imagine it?"

The idea makes Kurama shudder.