Yui struggled keeping up with the transitions, skips, and flips the next couple days. They were rapid fire. She would find herself mid convo with a student only to be snapped away to a new location and standing among new people in a new conversation. She would be laughing at a comment made by Keiko and then her surroundings would change. She would still be laughing, but Keiko was gone. Her laugh quickly died on her lips as other heads turned to gaze at the girl mirthlessly laughing to herself in the hallway.

She was beginning to hit her frustration limit and decided she would spend the rest of her time observing rather than socializing. Some of the students looked at her strangely and she ignored them to let them gossip.

Oh, yes. There was gossip. After Yui managed to crack glasses with her fists and whenever she would pass a room she could hear the syllables of her name spoken in passing. It was incessant, but mostly harmless until lunch time. Usually, she found herself in the company of the trio, but with another flip she was standing in the hallway alone leaning against a wall while curiously gazing at the occupants within the classroom. Yui pushed off from the wall and grabbed her lunch box from her cubby. As she turned, she saw bob-hair and pig-tails stiffen in their seats. Keiko waved her over in a half-hearted way.

She pulled up her desk chair and slid into it and observed the other girls. Pig-tails and bob-hair averted their gazes from her, but Keiko met her eyes. She looked exhausted. The lids of her eyes were oily and engorged from crying and the usual brightness of her irises had dimmed somewhat. Keiko attempted to smile reassuringly, but it broke into a trembling frown.

"Ah-h," Yui stuttered sensing a new bout of tears arriving, "I brought gyoza today! I thought we could use a little comfort food…?" She barely choked out and gauged the other girls' reaction. She popped the lid off her lunch box and within were fine rows of dumplings filled with meat and vegetables. Keiko's eyes fell to the box of food and then quickly fixed onto Yui before the corner of her lips tilted upward.

"That was thoughtful." Keiko sniffed.

"Keiko." Pig-tails admonished. She eyed the lunch box as if it were poison and quickly extracted a spiraled egg from her own lunchbox and placed it in Keiko's.

"What has gotten into you?" Keiko quickly removed the egg from her lunch box and tilted her head in askance.

"It's more...what has gotten into her." Bob-hair quickly darted her eyes at me before she and pig-tails shared a knowing look.

"Me?" Yui inquired. She knew the rumors had already spread, but they would die down in a few days as implausible stories tended to unravel with time. Surely, these two could not have bought into the rumors.

"She's a delinquent. You saw her punch Watanabe." Pig-tails added with a 'hmph.' "Some students heard Takenaka talking to the other teachers about calling her parents and suspension."

"My parents." Yui scoffed.

It was then a cold spike unlike anything she ever sensed shot down her spine as she tried recalling her parents' faces. In lieu of memories, there was simply a void. There was no information to recall about them. Surely, she had parents. Everyone had parents. A sense of wrongness overcame her as she tried to remember anything about them: a smell, a mother's warmth, shelter. Panic slowly crept in and she felt her chest begin to rise and fall quickly. She tried to temper the dread that was evident on her face, but Keiko must have witnessed it.

"Does that look like the reaction of a delinquent to having parents called?" Keiko rationalized, "Also, I find it strange that a delinquent would be second in our year for grades."

Yui gazed up at Keiko and she felt the sense of dread slightly wane. She focused on the conversation in front of her rather than the growing nervous knot that was pooling in her throat.

The transition of suspicion to realization was instant on bob-hair's face as if she was hit with cold water and she chuckled under her breath, "I suppose that's true."

"Well, I'm not buying it." Pig-tails concluded. "Poor Watanabe. He had to go to the hospital, you know."

"He did not." Bob-hair rolled her eyes. "He was sent to the infirmary and the nurse wrapped a cold pack against his eye."

"Ugh," Keiko groaned. Her head fell and her shoulders slouched and the small smile at the sight of gyoza had disappeared.

"Keiko, how about we eat…" Yui pointed upwards with a smirk of humor she didn't feel. "If I'm going to get suspended, I might as well just go all out."

"See." Pig-tails angrily chewed her food and slammed her chopsticks down. "You won't fool me."

Keiko stood up without a word and grabbed her own lunch box and Yui followed the girl into the hallway. The chestnut haired girl released a sigh under her breath and Yui caught it. Truly, she wanted to isolate the girl to get away from the bickering and maybe bring up the topic of her parents, but one glimpse at Keiko indicated that this was not the moment. Keiko was dealing with her own tragedies.

Yui was attempting to string words together to comfort the other girl; however, she wasn't sure what to say. She didn't know Urameshi as well as Keiko and she didn't want to overstep her boundaries. It was disheartening to see the usually prim girl wallowing. Today, her uniform was more ruffled than usual and her low tails were bunched up into a messy bun without a care. At the very least, she could let her know that Yusuke was okay. Well, as much as a ghost could be fine. She resigned herself to blurting it out and turned to Keiko with a look of determination, but as she opened her mouth another voice intervened.

"Hito, you're due for the teacher's office. Now." Mr. Akashi was standing at the threshold to another classroom with his arms crossed his chest as he sneered with his more prominent teeth sticking out.

"Yes, sir." Yui said monotonously as she tugged Keiko's arm and pointed upward again.

Keiko turned with a reprimanding gaze before adopting a mischievous smile and pivoted to walk in the opposite direction. Yui continued forward in the direction of the teachers' offices, but she would glide past them to the stairwell at the opposite end of the hall.

"Also, it would be preferential if you weren't a bad influence to your studious classmates." Akashi clucked his tongue.

"Did you forget, Mr. Akashi. I'm number two in rankings. Should I not be a bad influence...to myself?" Yui pondered aloud, feigning innocence.

"Get to the office now!" He screeched.

"Alright." She waved a dismissive hand behind her before dipping into an alcove where the water fountains were located beside the teachers' offices. Once she heard the door shut behind Akashi, she peeked out to check that there were no eyes on her and continued on to climb the stairwell. As she opened the door, Keiko was already sliding down the wall adjacent to the door and plopping on the ground. For a moment she slouched ungracefully, but at the sight of Yui she bolted upright and smoothed down her bow.

"Don't bother. Just relax." Yui slid down unceremoniously beside her. "Slouch, eat Gyoza. Don't feel you have to be lil' miss perfect around me."

"Lil' miss perfect?" Keiko tilted her head with a glare.

"Yes, today is a rough day. Drop the facade." Yui admonished and took in the way Keiko reared appearing affronted, but slowly her back fell to the cement brick behind her and she popped a dumpling in her mouth tentatively.

"Is that what you see? A facade?" Keiko asked tersely while she listlessly gazed at the clouds above.

"No. You're genuinely kind and overly helpful with extracurriculars. That's not a facade. But…" Yui paused while fingering the dumpling in her own hands. "Mediating fights between your friends while you're going through it. It's a facade. That's overextending yourself."

"Oh." Keiko finished chewing on her dumpling and then quickly turned her head to Yui, "Is that why you brought me up here?"

"Yeah, consider it a break from people. We don't have to talk. Just eat and breathe." Yui shrugged.

As Keiko settled into the quiet, Yui's head dropped to the cement bricks behind her and she observed the skies above. The clouds trailed by quickly as a warm wind picked up and a dot uncovered by the clouds bobbled up and down: a speck of green in a sea of blue. Urameshi was watching them. Beside him, a figure bobbled alongside him. Yui squinted to make out any characteristics.

"My parents want me to get out of the house tomorrow. They're worried about seeing me three days in a row in pajamas." Keiko said with a huff.

"Nothing wrong with pajamas." Yui side-eyed her. When she glanced back at the clouds, the two specks were gone. Weird.

"It's out of character for me. They want me to spend time outside with friends. Do you want to go shopping with me tomorrow?" Keiko inquired and there was a tinge of hope in her voice. "I'm going with Natsuko and-"

"Sure." Natsuko was the bob-haired girl Yui assumed. "All I see is...the school." Yui felt the dread hit her like a pound of bricks. Why couldn't she remember her home?

"Great!" Keiko continued unaware of Yui's mood turning sour. "We're going to the bookstore and there is some poetry I want to browse."

"Poetry…" Yui echoed emotionlessly.

Her hands were balled tightly by her sides as she felt her breath leave her body. She couldn't remember her parents. She couldn't recall having a home. Why was a question that was inherent to most people ambivalent to her? She turned to Keiko and grasped the other girl's hands. This time she would say it.

"Keiko, I can't remember-"

Flip.

"For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings

That then I scorn to change my state with kings.."

Yui flipped through the pages of a manga as Keiko recited poetry from translated classics. She glanced around quickly realizing she was no longer sitting on the roof of the school. The manga slid from her hand and she clumsily caught it between her hands and knees.

"I didn't think Shakespeare would have such an effect on you." Keiko mused with a smile. She looked refreshed. Her eyes were less swollen and she wore her hair in her usual low tails. She was wearing a freshly ironed dress with an embroidered cardigan over it. It was much neater than the simple jeans and white tee Yui donned. She grinned as Yui gaped at her.

"At least, I know what to get you for Christmas. Yui and romantic poetry. Who would have thought?" Keiko placed the book in the gap on the shelf in front of her.

"Yeah, I guess so…" Yui returned the shoujo manga in her hands back on the shelf before closing the gap between her and Keiko. This time she would be undeterred. The flip happened so soon. She rationalized that the flip happened recently, so she may have a sliver of time before the next one. "Keiko, can I speak with you about something?"

"Sure. I hope it's not about manga. I don't know how you can read some of the cornier ones." Keiko shook her head while eyeing the colorful manga that Yui had set down.

"No. It's about-"

"YAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" A scream from just outside the shop's door caused Keiko and Yui to survey the glass windows. Natsuko and pig-tails were standing there a moment ago, but they were nowhere in sight.

"Eh? Where are they?" Keiko glanced around the store and walked out the shop entrance.

Yui tried to follow her, but as she attempted to move her feet she discovered they were glued to the ground. She tried to mouth her discomfort and instead growled in frustration. Attempting to break out of her stasis, she found her own body was acting as a wall and preventing her from venturing forward. She watched helplessly as Keiko wandered onto the sidewalk outside the store.

Oh for the love of-

Her struggle was halted by the sight of a familiar carrot top. She couldn't hear them from the other side of the glass door, but he reached around from behind Keiko and cupped the other girl's chest. Yui's fight with her stasis started anew. Would she have to watch her friend be harassed?

Keiko bared her teeth in a snarl and with an open palm whipped around on the boy and slammed her hand into his cheek causing him to sail roughly into the ground.

"IDIOT, YUSUKE."

That was loud enough to rattle the shop's windows and filter in through the door. The chestnut haired girl glanced down at the boy confused. That was certainly not Urameshi. Unaffected, the boy on the ground laughed and animatedly began conversing with Keiko. At first, Keiko appeared disinterested in what he had to say, but as the conversation continued, her lips stopped moving and she was quiet. Carrot top adopted a serious visage uncharacteristic for his goofy face. He smiled and with his last words tears flowed out of Keiko's eyes.

Yui felt a sense of anger wash over her. The entire point of this day was to prevent Keiko from remaining in her grief and here was this carrot-oaf making her sob on the sidewalk. Yui staggered as she felt movement return to her and she was careening out the shop's door as she violently swung it open. She could hear Keiko wailing into her hands while carrot-top observed her nervously with sweat beading down his temple.

"What did you say to her?!" Yui ran between the two and her feet lifted off the ground as she sailed into the air and drop kicked the boy's chest onto the concrete below. Seeing the boy out of it she hastily stood up and sauntered back to Keiko. The other girl glanced up at Yui eyes drowning in tears before she locked her into a tight embrace and buried her face into her tee shirt.

"Keiko, what's wrong?" Yui felt the other girl's trembles against her shoulder.

"Whooooooa!" A voice cheered above.

Yui's head jerked upward and Urameshi was grinning at her upside down from an invisible perch above. His legs were hanging on an unseen pole as he assessed her and beside him a blue-haired woman on an oar was gazing at her with round magenta eyes. She was wearing traditional clothing, a yukata, but it was off. Normally, traditional clothing was saved for special occasions and printed with embroidery. Her clothing was plain and pink and appeared well worn.

"I give that kick an eight out of ten. Needed more style." Urameshi jested with a finger resting on his chin.

"That...is not funny." Yui hissed at the boy. From the continuous sobs against her shoulder, she concluded Keiko didn't hear her. Her eyes darted to the woman floating on the oar warily.

"Well, considering I'm the one that made her cry and you just bodied a total stranger for it, it's kind of funny." He snorted.

Yui was about to sound out her discontent when the woman on the oar quickly swayed in front of her and leaned in with a canvassing stare. It quickly stole the words out of Yui's mouth.

"How strange...when we were looking for Yusuke's friends with high spirit power for him to posess, you were never recorded." The blue haired woman floated around Yui in a circle with a piqued expression. "You can see us, correct?"

Yui nodded soundlessly. The woman on the oar sent shivers down her spine, but she couldn't pinpoint why. This was the 'Botan' Urameshi referred to earlier at his wake. The spirit guide. It had to be.

"What's your name?" Botan furrowed her brows as she asked.

"She's Hito Yui. I told you she could see me." Urameshi cut in. He upright-ed and fixed Botan with a scathing glare. "Not so crazy now, is it?"

"I suppose not. No, it is!" Botan insisted. "She's not spiritually aware. How is she able to see us?" She pointed between the green clad boy and her quickly.

"How am I supposed to know? Isn't that your department?" Urameshi said irritatedly.

"I'll have to inform the others." Botan murmured and she soared away and disappeared into the distance.

"Hey, wait up!" Yusuke swam upward, dissipating into nothingness.

That left Yui standing gobsmacked on a sidewalk with Keiko sobbing into her shoulder and the boy she remembered as 'Kuwabara' stirring on the floor. She couldn't recognize him with his face beaten to a pulp, but as he muttered on the ground with a hoarse voice she recalled the carrot top shouting at the top of his lungs with a similar hoarseness. He stared at her confused, but he remained silent as Yui leveled him with a glare.

"Yusuke...he's coming back." Keiko sniffed against Yui's wet shoulder.

"Is he?" Yui chuckled humorlessly.

"You don't believe me?" Keiko choked as if trying to hold in another sob.

"Oh, I believe you. Sounds weird enough to be true." Yui admitted. She just experienced being interrogated by a blue haired...person. Ghost. Thing. Weird was slowly becoming the new norm.

"HEY!" Kuwabara plucked himself off the sidewalk and stomped over. "What gives? Why'd you kick me?!"

"You made my friend cry." Yui answered tensely. Truly, she knew it wasn't him now, but she continued the deflection for Urameshi's sake.

"I did not. I don't remember!" Kuwabara seethed as he dusted the sneaker prints off his blue jacket.

"Oh!" Keiko said as if remembering something. "Sorry, Kuwabara. I just remembered something." She grasped Yui's hand and took off down the street with the girl in tow. They rounded a corner into a jewelry store and they both watched as Kuwabara ran past the glass windows before stopping and surveying the area. He continued stomping down the road until he was out of sight.

Keiko sniffed before wiping her cheeks and giggling, "Sorry. I probably should have explained."

"Urameshi borrowed his body to tell you he's coming back?" Yui supplied and basked in the way Keiko's face warped into astonishment. She hit it on the nail.

"How did you know?" Keiko tilted her head in confusion.

Yui lifted her hands in a 'grabby' gesture and Keiko quickly blushed and covered herself with her cardigan to hide her embarrassment. She rolled her eyes at Yui.

"Why did you kick Kuwabara?" Keiko unraveled the logic.

"I didn't realize until you said Yusuke was coming back." Yui lied. She couldn't tell Keiko she was speaking with spirits. That would sound too wild and for now she wanted to be supportive.

"I still can't believe it…" Keiko exhaled a breath she was holding in and held her arm to her chest. "I feel so-"

"Relieved?"

"Yes." Keiko confessed with a nod. Her eyes widened a fracture. "I need to visit his mom! Nothing can happen to his body!"

Twin expressions of horror crept on their faces and they were quickly running out of the store and headed to Urameshi's house.

Flip.

Her back was beginning to ache the longer she sat cross legged on the ground. Keiko was sat across from Atsuko, Urameshi's mother. In between them was the comatose boy while they chatted over him. Keiko's worries seemed to be misplaced as Atsuko had already hoped the boy would wake up, but Yui could see the relief on her face hearing it aloud from someone else. Yui was trying to not let the morbidity of the scene show and she maintained a placid expression. Urameshi's body rested completely still and pale, but Keiko assured her that his heart was beating. It shouldn't have been possible.

After his accident, she hadn't heard of him undergoing any medical care for his injuries. They were supposedly prolonging his life without doctors or any assistance to monitor him by caring for his body and cleaning the environment around him. He didn't have any apparatuses hooked up to him so how was he receiving nutrients? It was beyond strange, yet the body in front of her didn't appear dead. His chest ever so slowly rose and fell. She had to observe him closely to register it.

"I'm glad you brought Miss Psychic with you. Kinda confirms your whole story." Atsuko lazily commented and her eyes rested on Yui quickly snapping the girl out of her thoughts.

"Psychic?" Keiko slowly turned her gaze to Yui.

"So, the thing is…" Yui was fumbling to find the correct words that wouldn't make her appear completely touched in the head or out of line.

"You can speak to spirits?" Atsuko stated but the raised octave and tenseness in her voice as her eyes narrowed made Yui falter. She didn't want to be accused of lying.

"I've spoken to spirits before. It's how I knew you were telling the truth," She reasoned with Keiko and the other girl's eyes widened. "Actually, it was Urameshi that told me he made you cry after I kicked that boy. And I thought, 'Well, leave it to Urameshi to leave disaster in his w-" Yui quickly shut up.

She was going to say 'wake.' Poor word choice.

"Yusuke...spoke to you." Keiko lifted a brow inquisitively and it caused Yui to raise her hands supplicantly.

"Yes? He's not around all the time. Like now. He's not around now." Yui took a breath. "Sometimes he just pops in. I think he's checking in on you two. Every time I've seen him, it was because either one of you was around."

"Like at the wake." Atsuko pondered as she lit a cigarette and placed it to her lips.

"Yes." Yui nodded and at the silence that followed she felt herself retreating.

"So what did he say?" Keiko was leaning forward on her hands with a hand gripped on her chest.

"They, by the way he has a spirit guide, said they were looking for spiritually aware people for him to possess." Yui explained trying to piece it together as she spoke. "It seems like he's working with the guide to return."

"That's how he got his message to me." Keiko concluded.

"A spirit guide?" Atsuko said with disbelief.

"She was so strange. Seeing Yusuke's ghost doesn't creep me out as much as seeing her does." Yui confessed aloud and the occupants in the room grew quiet.

"Anything else? So we know you're telling the truth?" Atsuko leveled her with a serious stare.

Yui fiddled with the hem of her shirt nervously at a loss for words. Urameshi didn't say much to her, so she was uncertain about information his mother could glean that would make her seem genuine.

"Well, when I kicked Kuwabara he said: I give that kick an eight out of ten. Needed more style." She mocked and enunciated like the streetpunk.

Atsuko took a deep breath, "Yep, that's him."

"That fool. He needs to stop kidding around and get back in his body." Keiko bemoaned and she bit her lip nervously. Her hands rose to her face.

"I don't think it works like that, kiddo." Atsuko puffed a cloud of smoke. "Give him time, I'm sure he'll be back eventually." She said in a blasé fashion and leaned her elbow against a table behind her.

Keiko nodded slowly and lifted off the floor. "I'm going to make tea," she said without glancing back.

"You should go check on her. She needs company." Atsuko urged and ran fingers through her hair.

Yui stood and ventured into the house. There was a small kitchenette where she found Keiko leaning against a countertop. Her hands were gripping the edge and her eyes were tightly shut. She quickly turned away from Yui and busied herself with making tea. She didn't acknowledge the other girl's presence and when she slammed a cabinet a little too hard Yui began to extract the mugs from her hands before she broke something.

"I just don't understand how Atsuko can be so calm about this." Keiko murmured under her breath.

"She's probably not. Sometimes when people cry themselves out, they have nothing left to give. At least, we gave her hope. I think we did." Yui filled a pot with water and let it rest on the stove. It seemed the Urameshi's lacked a kettle.

"..." Keiko sighed and rummaged around the cabinets and found packets of discounted tea.

"Discounted hundred yen tea? Gourmet." Yui said off-handedly.

"Hah. This is not the time." Keiko huffed, but Yui could spy the furrow of her brows disappearing as a smile threatened her lips. She placed three mugs in front of her and deposited a dry tea bag in each while they waited for the water to boil.

"Oh, right. What did you want to talk to me about?" Keiko leaned with her back against the counter.

Yui's heart slowly rose to her throat as she met the other girl's stare. The nervous pit in her stomach swirled and she could hear her own breaths erratically leave her. Her lips parted, but the words were slow to leave.

"Yui?" Keiko pushed off the counter and reached out to grasp the other girl's wrist.

"I don't know how to say this." Yui felt her lip tremble.

"What's wrong?" Keiko leaned forward and inspected Yui's face. "Is it Yusuke?"

"No." Yui nearly shouted. "For some reason, I can't remember my par-"

Flip.