Disclaimer: There shall be no disclaimers in this chapter. *Hiei constantly hits Dream Fox over the head with a foldable chair* Okay, okay! Don't get your dragon in a knot! I don't own YYH or any of it's characters.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

After his sudden outburst, the human child looked quite surprised. Then, he did the last thing Hiei expected: he burst out into laughter. Having the distinct feeling he was being laughed at, the fire demon frowned irritably at the wall, waiting impatiently for the child to stop laughing.

Finally, as the red-head's breathing began to even out and as he brushed an invisible tear from his eye, he got control again. "Sorry," he apologized sincerely. "But I keep forgetting how odd I must look to a ki reader. You could say," he said with an odd, slight smirk, "that I'm a slight mixture of the two."

Hiei looked over at him sharply, surprised by his answer. "A half breed?" he asked. 'What else could he be?' he wondered to himself.

The apparent hanyou (a/n: this means half breed in Japanese) shrugged lazily, a small smile still clinging to his lips. "Something like that."

"Besides," the child said, continuing with the re-bandaging, "you're a bit of a odd mix yourself, aren't you? You defiantly have fire powers and it's unquestionable that fire is your main element." Then Kurama frowned a bit. "But you're not totally fire demon either, and I'm not entirely sure what the other half is."

Hiei nearly felt his heart stop, but his self control allowed him to turn away before the surprise showed on his face. 'How could he know? How can he read the bloodlines of a demon that easily? What will I do if he finds out?!?! He helped me, I don't want to kill him!'

In a frantic search for something to change the topic of conversation to, he asked, "And how old are you, anyway? You look like a kid, but you certainly don't act like one."

The hanyou winced for the second time in their conversation, but was polite enough to answer, "I'm eight in the human world. But in the demon world, I'm much older.

'This is interesting. There's more to this hanyou then what first meets the eye.' "How old?" he asked suspiciously.

"Pretty old," the other answered in an obvious attempt to side step the question.

"Exactly how old?" Hiei demanded, the oddness of the situation growing with every passing moment.

Then the hanyou sighed dramatically, giving in to the question. "I'm not exactly sure, but if I had to guess, I'd say about 1000 years or so."

Hiei's eyes nearly popped out of his head at that. 'One thousand YEARS?!?! Good god, the guy's older then the entire ice demon clan! There are probably only six other demons in the worlds that old! He's nearly as old as Enma himself! This hanyou is defiantly not normal!'

"What kind of demon are you, anyway?" He asked the child as the red head pushed the medicine box back under the bed. 'This will tell me a lot about him,' he thought. 'Maybe I've heard of him. Or if I haven't, I can probably find out more later.'

"Kitsune," the green eyed one told the red eyed.

Slightly disappointed by the answer, he responded with, "Hn. A plant wielder, then."

"Hey, it was this plant wielder who saved your life," Kurama told the fire demon irritably. 'Ah, so he does have a temper, then,' Hiei thought smugly, glad to find that the kitsune wasn't completely perfect.

"I'll be leaving then," the fire demon told the kitsune, standing up painfully, but managing to keep his balance.

Suddenly, Kurama's arm flew out, grabbing Hiei's own hand in a desperate attempt to pull him back to a sitting position, as the hanyou cried, "You just got seriously injured! You should rest before you go get into trouble. Stay here for the night at least!"

Hiei felt a flare of anger arise in him. 'How DARE this….this kitsune touch him like this!' But with sudden realization, it occurred to him how few people touch him. 'How many people have touched me in my life time? In a none fighting way? I could probably count them on the fingers of my hands….'

Instead of yelling at the fox, or slicing his hand off, he just pulled himself out of the kitsune's grasp. "I'd rather just leave," the fire demon told him.

Suddenly, completely spontaneously and without a second thought, he turned around and told the red head, "thanks," and jumped out of the window and into the night.

Upon reflection of that moment, Hiei asked himself many times why he did that. Why had he of all people, turned around and THANKED a kitsune demon, and one who saw him weak and helpless at that? Was it really gratitude? Or was it something else? Demon psychology was not something that was well known to the fire demon, but he knew himself fairly well. If he couldn't answer that question himself, then who knew? It was only years later that he found the answer: that tiny, little "thanks" was the start of his first, real friendship.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Hey everyone!

Another short chapter, and it took a long time at that. But before you go and get all mad at me, I have a couple good excuses. First of all, copying chapter 7 wording from "Fox Child" is an exceedingly boring task. This was most certainly not a very fun chapter to write. The other thing is that I missed all the episodes where you as the audience are introduced to Yukina, so I didn't want to say something that would drastically go against the anime series. Since I'm watching those episodes right now, chapters will probably come more frequently. I think the next several chapters will be a lot more entertaining.

And to those of you that haven't read "Fox Child" yet, I defiantly suggest you do so! It's a parallel story to this one in the point of view focusing on Kurama. In fact, if you haven't read this story yet, which you probably already have considering you're reading this, go do that first! That story is a lot better then this one, at least in my opinion. Besides, it's updated a lot more often.

This story will probably be updated on Thursday the 26 of June, so stay tuned and talk to you all soon!

Dream Fox