CHAPTER ONE
Separated
Hiei was in no mood to be bothered. He was half-asleep and had a horrible headache. And an even worse hangover from the night before, when he had lost a drinking contest to Kurama. But, as is usual in most cases like this, he got bothered.
Somebody pounded on the door.
"Hiei, get out here! We don't have time for you to lounge around in your room! There's some freaky demon attacker theif guy or something outside the city waiting for us to come whip his ass! Speaking of asses, you better get yours out here soon or it's gonna be black and blue!" Yusuke yelled through the door.
"Have Shadow fight!" Hiei snapped.
"What? Me? Fight? Are you nuts? I am what you might like to call a spectator. I watch. And when one of you gets your face plastered into the ground, I wrap you up in bandages and carry you home. I am not a spirit detective fighter person!!!" Shadow yelled.
"Fight anyway!"
"What's wrong with you, Hiei?! Last time I checked, you LIKED to fight!" Yusuke yelled.
"Maybe he's on P.M.S," Shadow muttered under her breath.
"BOYS DON'T GET P.M.S, YOU SICK CHILD!!!" Hiei screamed.
"I KNOW THAT, HIEI! I WAS JOKING! JUST BECAUSE YOU HAVE A HANGOVER, YOU HAVE TO GO AND BE A LITTLE IMBECILE ABOUT IT!" Shadow shot back. Hiei let out a low growl. He stood up and ripped open his door, nearly tearing it off the hinges in his fury.
"FINE!!!" Hiei snapped. "I'LL FIGHT! But if ANYONE says ANYTHING about last night, you are going to be VERY SORRY!"
Shadow and Yusuke followed Hiei down the stairs and out the front door to where Kurama and Kuwabara were waiting. The group took off down the street towards the pre-arranged fight.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Upon arriving, the boys were instantly attacked. Shadow hung back, avoiding the main fight ground.
The fight dragged on. Kuwabara was the first one down, proving that, even when he had a hangover, Hiei was better. Suddenly, Shadow heard a yell. She looked up. The enemy was fighting Kurama one-on-one. Kurama was on one knee, holding his stomach. Blood seeped between his fingers. The enemy stepped forward. Kurama tried to stand, but the enemy grabbed him.
"Your soul is different than the others'. I want to see it," the enemy hissed. Kurama wasn't sure what was going on, except that he was probably about to die. The enemy placed his hand on Kurama's chest. A faint light glowed around his hand. Suddenly, there was a huge explosion.
The next thing anyone knew, the enemy was dead. Shadow, Yusuke, and Hiei ran to check on Kurama. They stopped dead at what they saw.
Youko Kurama was sprawled on the ground, breathing hard. A few feet away, a human boy with long red hair was laying unconscious. The three boys stared in horror. Finally, Hiei spoke up.
"They're... separated?" he muttered.
Yusuke ran to check on Shuuichi's body.
"He's still alive!" Yusuke yelled. He gathered the boy up in his arms and carried him back to where Shadow and Hiei were standing. Youko still hadn't gotten up. Hiei kneeled beside him.
"Youko? Are you all right?" Hiei asked. Youko groaned.
"What... Hiei?" he muttered. He sat up. "What's going on?"
"That's what we'd like to know," Yusuke said. Youko looked at him and jumped at the sight of the body in his arms.
"How is this possible?"
"We'd like to know that, too," Shadow said. Youko and Hiei stood up.
"We should contact Koenma," Yusuke said.
From his place on the ground 10 feet away, Kuwabara groaned and sat up. He'd heard the explosion. He looked around, spotting Youko.
"Can you get up? If you can, please do," Shadow called to Kuwabara from where she stood. The human boy struggled to his feet, staggering over to where the rest of the group stood. He almost screamed when he saw Shuuichi's body in Yusuke's arms. He looked back and forth between Youko and Shuuichi.
"What the heck is going on here, you guys?" Kuwabara asked.
"We don't know. Let's get back to Shadow's house," Yusuke said.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
A little while later, they arrived back at Shadow's house. They headed down to the small infirmary she had in the basement.
Yusuke gently put Shuuichi's body down on one of the beds.
"Yusuke, could you tend to Shuuichi's injuries? I have to get Hiei's and Kuwabara's..." Shadow said. Yusuke nodded and she turned to Youko. "Are you hurt at all?"
"No..." Youko answered. "But I want to know what happened."
"We don't know," Hiei answered, sitting on one of the beds so Shadow could tend to his wounds. "All we know is that somehow, you got completely separated from the human body you've been in for 16 years."
"What about him?" Youko asked, pointing at Shuuichi.
"Who knows," Hiei muttered. "Ow!" He jumped as Shadow dabbed at a gash on his arm with an alcohol-soaked cloth. "That burns."
"Live with it," Shadow answered. Usually, she was a rather useless person who seemed like a bit of an airhead, but when she needed to be, she was serious and helpful. Hiei jumped again as she poked his wound. She grabbed a box of bandages and began wrapping the injury. Youko started absentmindedly wandering around, looking at various bottles and boxes on the shelves around the room.
The doorbell rang.
"What?! Who could that be? I'm busy... Youko, would you... No, best not..." Shadow said, realizing how shocked a normal human would be to see a fox- eared man answer the door. "I'll go," she muttered, handing the half- wrapped bandage to Hiei and darting past Youko and up the stairs.
Everybody was rather quiet. Hiei finished wrapping his arm while Yusuke bandaged Shuuichi's wounds. Kuwabara was laying on one of the beds, conscious but not looking too happy. Youko's ears twitched as he listened to Shadow upstairs.
"It's Koenma," he announced, rolling his eyes.
"Well at least he saved us the trouble of going to Reikai," Yusuke said, sounding rather bored. A second later, Shadow came back down the stairs with teenage Koenma trailing behind her. He stopped in the doorway.
"Oh dear," he whispered, seeing Youko and Shuuichi as seperate people. "This isn't good."
"Why not?" Youko said this like a challenge, or a threat, daring Koenma to say that his freedom was a bad thing.
"Why... not?" Koenma repeated cautiously. "Well, it's obvious that Kurama-- er... Shuuichi will be a completely different person if, or when, he regains consciousness. Who knows what he'll be like."
Hiei grinned. "You forgot the part about the legendary theif being loose in Ningenkai," he said, knowing that was part of Koenma's reasoning.
"Yes... Well that IS a small problem, Youko," Koenma said, looking at the fox nervously. "You'll have to stay away from humans, so you only have a few choices. Stay here, with Shadow and Hiei, assuming they don't mind..."
Shadow and Hiei didn't care, so Koenma continued.
"Or you could come back to Reikai and stay there."
"In Reikai prison," Youko finished under his breath.
"What?"
"I'll stay here, since I probably couldn't stop myself from stealing all your precious Reikai artifacts," Youko sneered. "And ~you~ couldn't stop me either."
Koenma looked slightly paler after that comment. "I... uh... I'll be back when, or if, Shuuichi wakes up. I'll be going now." He vanished.
"So you're staying with us, huh?" Hiei said.
"I guess so. If Shadow doesn't mind, of course," Youko teased. Shadow didn't mind that much, but she was glaring at him with enough evil in her eyes to make even Youko jump.
"What did I do?" he asked.
"Guilty conscience," Shadow muttered under her breath. Youko's ear twitched and he narrowed his eyes. "NO STEALING, FOX!"
"Ha. Like you have anything I'd want," Youko replied arrogantly, back to his normal self.
"You'd be surprised," Hiei said, but seeing the look Shadow gave him, he quickly 'corrected' himself.
"I mean, probably not," Hiei said. Then he added, "But you never know."
"Shut UP, baka fire demon!" Shadow yelled, punching him in the back of the head.
"Ow!" Hiei yelped.
"Yusuke, have you got Shuuichi's wounds taken care of?" Shadow asked, ignoring Hiei's whispered curses as he rubbed his head.
"Almost."
"Well, take care of Kuwabara too if he needs it," Shadow said. "I'm going to show our new ~guest~ to his room. C'mon." She grabbed Youko by the front of his shirt, spun him around, and practically dragged him out of the room. Somehow, she didn't lose her arm.
Once they were upstairs, Shadow let go and turned around so fast Youko nearly ran into her.
"Okay, if you're going to live here, there's three rules. No stealing. No killing of anything larger than an insect. And last, DO NOT DESTROY ANYTHING IN THIS HOUSE!! I get enough of my house destroyed by that little pyromaniac I live with," Shadow snapped. Youko looked startled. Then he smiled.
"You really don't trust me," he realized.
"Can you blame her?" Hiei said, coming up the stairs. "You ARE the legendary bandit, after all."
Youko shrugged. "Oh well."
"Other than that, you're pretty much free to do whatever. I suggest you don't go out and hang around in the front yard much, either. There's a gang of 10-year-olds on bikes that go by here all the time, and if they saw you, the cops would be here in no time, because the little kids would to crying to their mommies about a wolf man trying to eat them alive..." Shadow said.
"Wolf man?" Youko said, disgusted. "I am a FOX, not a wolf."
"Well, those kids would think you're a wolf, because they saw Hiei once and thought he was Frankenstien."
A little halo seemed to appear out of nowhere above Hiei's head.
Youko stared at Hiei for a minute. "Frankenstien?!"
"Yeah... heh... Long story," Hiei said.
"Anyway! Back to the point. Youko, your room is the guest room across the hall from mine. NOT the one with the weasels in it, either, because we all know that those weasels would not sit well with the idea of a kitsune sleeping in their room," Shadow said.
"Right..." Youko muttered. He walked upstairs.
"Well..." Hiei muttered. "This just feels all wrong."
"That's because it IS wrong. Shuuichi is... human. Well, not... He's always been human. I mean, he doesn't have a spirit fox soul. And the spirit fox is... upstairs. In the guest bedroom. He should be... in Shuuichi. And... Maybe Shuuichi won't have a soul," Shadow said. She was practically having a nervous breakdown.
"I'm sure he'll have a soul," Hiei muttered.
"And what about his mind? He doesn't have Youko's mind anymore. He mind just be a hollow body! He might never wake up. And if he does, who knows what he'll be like!" Shadow was completely freaking out now.
"Shadow! Calm down. The world is not going to end because of this," Hiei said, grabbing her shoulders and shaking her.
"Agh! Okay! Let go!" Shadow snapped. Hiei let go. Shadow swayed for a second before shaking her head and blinking. "I'm okay. Are you okay? How are your wounds?"
"I'm fine. I'll be fine. Shuuichi will be fine. We just have to wait for him to wake up. After that, we'll try to figure out what to do with him. Them. Okay?" Hiei said.
"Yeah. Okay," Shadow muttered. "I'm going to my room."
Hiei watched Shadow stomp up the stairs to her room. He turned around and went back downstairs.
"Yusuke?" Hiei said, walking around the corner. Yusuke had his back to Hiei and was desperately trying to bandage his wounds on his own.
"They just go and vanish, not even asking if I'm okay. Not asking me if I need help. NO, they just assume Yusuke is all mighty and can do everything on his own. I feel so stupid! I can't even bandage my own stupid injuries..." Yusuke was talking to himself.
"Hey!" Hiei snapped. Yusuke jumped a million miles in the air.
"Holy God!" Yusuke yelped, spinning around. "DON'T SNEAK UP ON ME LIKE THAT, HIEI!!!"
"God! Sor-ry!" Hiei said, sitting cross-legged (indian-style, whatever) on the edge of a table. "You shouldn't talk to yourself, you know. It's a sign of insanity."
"Pfft. That's only if you answer yourself," Yusuke said. He dropped the roll of bandages. "I could use some help here!"
Rolling his eyes, Hiei jumped down from the table. He picked up the roll and started wrapping the bandage around Yusuke's upper arm.
"So what're you guys gonna do with Youko?" Yusuke asked.
"I don't know. Shadow practically had a nervous breakdown because she doesn't know what to do with Shuuichi, or if he'll wake up, but she's pretty much in control with Youko. She already set down her rules... But somehow I don't think he'll obey..."
"Of course I will," Youko said from behind them. Hiei and Yusuke jumped. Hiei dropped the bandage and the whole thing came unwrapped from Yusuke's arm. Youko smothered laughter as Hiei knelt to gether up the mess of cloth.
"Let's see you do better, hot shot!" Hiei snapped, throwing the bandage at Youko. It landed in a tangled mess on top of his head.
"Hell no, man! I'm a theif, not a nurse!" Youko snapped, untangling himself from the bandage and throwing it back at Hiei. The fire demon caught it and stared at it. It was covered in fuzz and hair, and the cloth was already coming apart.
"Yusuke, bandage your own stupid wound!" Hiei said, getting annoyed with trying to untangle, clean, and roll up the cloth. He stuck it in Yusuke's hand and went back to perch on the table. Youko walked over to Shuuichi's bed.
"Just look at him. That used to be me. But not anymore. Now I'm free again, and I intend to make good use of it," Youko said quietly, more to himself than anyone else. "But first... I'm hungry... Did I see goldfish on my way down here?" Youko walked out of the room. A second later, after realizing what he had just heard, Hiei shot out of the room.
"Youko! No! Not the fish! Shadow will have your head on a plate!!!" he called, shooting up the stairs after the spirit fox.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
This story is just something that came into my head because I wanted to write a story with Youko as a permanent character, rather than just surfacing now and then. So he's here, and he'll be here until who knows when. R&R, minna!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~**~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Separated
Hiei was in no mood to be bothered. He was half-asleep and had a horrible headache. And an even worse hangover from the night before, when he had lost a drinking contest to Kurama. But, as is usual in most cases like this, he got bothered.
Somebody pounded on the door.
"Hiei, get out here! We don't have time for you to lounge around in your room! There's some freaky demon attacker theif guy or something outside the city waiting for us to come whip his ass! Speaking of asses, you better get yours out here soon or it's gonna be black and blue!" Yusuke yelled through the door.
"Have Shadow fight!" Hiei snapped.
"What? Me? Fight? Are you nuts? I am what you might like to call a spectator. I watch. And when one of you gets your face plastered into the ground, I wrap you up in bandages and carry you home. I am not a spirit detective fighter person!!!" Shadow yelled.
"Fight anyway!"
"What's wrong with you, Hiei?! Last time I checked, you LIKED to fight!" Yusuke yelled.
"Maybe he's on P.M.S," Shadow muttered under her breath.
"BOYS DON'T GET P.M.S, YOU SICK CHILD!!!" Hiei screamed.
"I KNOW THAT, HIEI! I WAS JOKING! JUST BECAUSE YOU HAVE A HANGOVER, YOU HAVE TO GO AND BE A LITTLE IMBECILE ABOUT IT!" Shadow shot back. Hiei let out a low growl. He stood up and ripped open his door, nearly tearing it off the hinges in his fury.
"FINE!!!" Hiei snapped. "I'LL FIGHT! But if ANYONE says ANYTHING about last night, you are going to be VERY SORRY!"
Shadow and Yusuke followed Hiei down the stairs and out the front door to where Kurama and Kuwabara were waiting. The group took off down the street towards the pre-arranged fight.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Upon arriving, the boys were instantly attacked. Shadow hung back, avoiding the main fight ground.
The fight dragged on. Kuwabara was the first one down, proving that, even when he had a hangover, Hiei was better. Suddenly, Shadow heard a yell. She looked up. The enemy was fighting Kurama one-on-one. Kurama was on one knee, holding his stomach. Blood seeped between his fingers. The enemy stepped forward. Kurama tried to stand, but the enemy grabbed him.
"Your soul is different than the others'. I want to see it," the enemy hissed. Kurama wasn't sure what was going on, except that he was probably about to die. The enemy placed his hand on Kurama's chest. A faint light glowed around his hand. Suddenly, there was a huge explosion.
The next thing anyone knew, the enemy was dead. Shadow, Yusuke, and Hiei ran to check on Kurama. They stopped dead at what they saw.
Youko Kurama was sprawled on the ground, breathing hard. A few feet away, a human boy with long red hair was laying unconscious. The three boys stared in horror. Finally, Hiei spoke up.
"They're... separated?" he muttered.
Yusuke ran to check on Shuuichi's body.
"He's still alive!" Yusuke yelled. He gathered the boy up in his arms and carried him back to where Shadow and Hiei were standing. Youko still hadn't gotten up. Hiei kneeled beside him.
"Youko? Are you all right?" Hiei asked. Youko groaned.
"What... Hiei?" he muttered. He sat up. "What's going on?"
"That's what we'd like to know," Yusuke said. Youko looked at him and jumped at the sight of the body in his arms.
"How is this possible?"
"We'd like to know that, too," Shadow said. Youko and Hiei stood up.
"We should contact Koenma," Yusuke said.
From his place on the ground 10 feet away, Kuwabara groaned and sat up. He'd heard the explosion. He looked around, spotting Youko.
"Can you get up? If you can, please do," Shadow called to Kuwabara from where she stood. The human boy struggled to his feet, staggering over to where the rest of the group stood. He almost screamed when he saw Shuuichi's body in Yusuke's arms. He looked back and forth between Youko and Shuuichi.
"What the heck is going on here, you guys?" Kuwabara asked.
"We don't know. Let's get back to Shadow's house," Yusuke said.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
A little while later, they arrived back at Shadow's house. They headed down to the small infirmary she had in the basement.
Yusuke gently put Shuuichi's body down on one of the beds.
"Yusuke, could you tend to Shuuichi's injuries? I have to get Hiei's and Kuwabara's..." Shadow said. Yusuke nodded and she turned to Youko. "Are you hurt at all?"
"No..." Youko answered. "But I want to know what happened."
"We don't know," Hiei answered, sitting on one of the beds so Shadow could tend to his wounds. "All we know is that somehow, you got completely separated from the human body you've been in for 16 years."
"What about him?" Youko asked, pointing at Shuuichi.
"Who knows," Hiei muttered. "Ow!" He jumped as Shadow dabbed at a gash on his arm with an alcohol-soaked cloth. "That burns."
"Live with it," Shadow answered. Usually, she was a rather useless person who seemed like a bit of an airhead, but when she needed to be, she was serious and helpful. Hiei jumped again as she poked his wound. She grabbed a box of bandages and began wrapping the injury. Youko started absentmindedly wandering around, looking at various bottles and boxes on the shelves around the room.
The doorbell rang.
"What?! Who could that be? I'm busy... Youko, would you... No, best not..." Shadow said, realizing how shocked a normal human would be to see a fox- eared man answer the door. "I'll go," she muttered, handing the half- wrapped bandage to Hiei and darting past Youko and up the stairs.
Everybody was rather quiet. Hiei finished wrapping his arm while Yusuke bandaged Shuuichi's wounds. Kuwabara was laying on one of the beds, conscious but not looking too happy. Youko's ears twitched as he listened to Shadow upstairs.
"It's Koenma," he announced, rolling his eyes.
"Well at least he saved us the trouble of going to Reikai," Yusuke said, sounding rather bored. A second later, Shadow came back down the stairs with teenage Koenma trailing behind her. He stopped in the doorway.
"Oh dear," he whispered, seeing Youko and Shuuichi as seperate people. "This isn't good."
"Why not?" Youko said this like a challenge, or a threat, daring Koenma to say that his freedom was a bad thing.
"Why... not?" Koenma repeated cautiously. "Well, it's obvious that Kurama-- er... Shuuichi will be a completely different person if, or when, he regains consciousness. Who knows what he'll be like."
Hiei grinned. "You forgot the part about the legendary theif being loose in Ningenkai," he said, knowing that was part of Koenma's reasoning.
"Yes... Well that IS a small problem, Youko," Koenma said, looking at the fox nervously. "You'll have to stay away from humans, so you only have a few choices. Stay here, with Shadow and Hiei, assuming they don't mind..."
Shadow and Hiei didn't care, so Koenma continued.
"Or you could come back to Reikai and stay there."
"In Reikai prison," Youko finished under his breath.
"What?"
"I'll stay here, since I probably couldn't stop myself from stealing all your precious Reikai artifacts," Youko sneered. "And ~you~ couldn't stop me either."
Koenma looked slightly paler after that comment. "I... uh... I'll be back when, or if, Shuuichi wakes up. I'll be going now." He vanished.
"So you're staying with us, huh?" Hiei said.
"I guess so. If Shadow doesn't mind, of course," Youko teased. Shadow didn't mind that much, but she was glaring at him with enough evil in her eyes to make even Youko jump.
"What did I do?" he asked.
"Guilty conscience," Shadow muttered under her breath. Youko's ear twitched and he narrowed his eyes. "NO STEALING, FOX!"
"Ha. Like you have anything I'd want," Youko replied arrogantly, back to his normal self.
"You'd be surprised," Hiei said, but seeing the look Shadow gave him, he quickly 'corrected' himself.
"I mean, probably not," Hiei said. Then he added, "But you never know."
"Shut UP, baka fire demon!" Shadow yelled, punching him in the back of the head.
"Ow!" Hiei yelped.
"Yusuke, have you got Shuuichi's wounds taken care of?" Shadow asked, ignoring Hiei's whispered curses as he rubbed his head.
"Almost."
"Well, take care of Kuwabara too if he needs it," Shadow said. "I'm going to show our new ~guest~ to his room. C'mon." She grabbed Youko by the front of his shirt, spun him around, and practically dragged him out of the room. Somehow, she didn't lose her arm.
Once they were upstairs, Shadow let go and turned around so fast Youko nearly ran into her.
"Okay, if you're going to live here, there's three rules. No stealing. No killing of anything larger than an insect. And last, DO NOT DESTROY ANYTHING IN THIS HOUSE!! I get enough of my house destroyed by that little pyromaniac I live with," Shadow snapped. Youko looked startled. Then he smiled.
"You really don't trust me," he realized.
"Can you blame her?" Hiei said, coming up the stairs. "You ARE the legendary bandit, after all."
Youko shrugged. "Oh well."
"Other than that, you're pretty much free to do whatever. I suggest you don't go out and hang around in the front yard much, either. There's a gang of 10-year-olds on bikes that go by here all the time, and if they saw you, the cops would be here in no time, because the little kids would to crying to their mommies about a wolf man trying to eat them alive..." Shadow said.
"Wolf man?" Youko said, disgusted. "I am a FOX, not a wolf."
"Well, those kids would think you're a wolf, because they saw Hiei once and thought he was Frankenstien."
A little halo seemed to appear out of nowhere above Hiei's head.
Youko stared at Hiei for a minute. "Frankenstien?!"
"Yeah... heh... Long story," Hiei said.
"Anyway! Back to the point. Youko, your room is the guest room across the hall from mine. NOT the one with the weasels in it, either, because we all know that those weasels would not sit well with the idea of a kitsune sleeping in their room," Shadow said.
"Right..." Youko muttered. He walked upstairs.
"Well..." Hiei muttered. "This just feels all wrong."
"That's because it IS wrong. Shuuichi is... human. Well, not... He's always been human. I mean, he doesn't have a spirit fox soul. And the spirit fox is... upstairs. In the guest bedroom. He should be... in Shuuichi. And... Maybe Shuuichi won't have a soul," Shadow said. She was practically having a nervous breakdown.
"I'm sure he'll have a soul," Hiei muttered.
"And what about his mind? He doesn't have Youko's mind anymore. He mind just be a hollow body! He might never wake up. And if he does, who knows what he'll be like!" Shadow was completely freaking out now.
"Shadow! Calm down. The world is not going to end because of this," Hiei said, grabbing her shoulders and shaking her.
"Agh! Okay! Let go!" Shadow snapped. Hiei let go. Shadow swayed for a second before shaking her head and blinking. "I'm okay. Are you okay? How are your wounds?"
"I'm fine. I'll be fine. Shuuichi will be fine. We just have to wait for him to wake up. After that, we'll try to figure out what to do with him. Them. Okay?" Hiei said.
"Yeah. Okay," Shadow muttered. "I'm going to my room."
Hiei watched Shadow stomp up the stairs to her room. He turned around and went back downstairs.
"Yusuke?" Hiei said, walking around the corner. Yusuke had his back to Hiei and was desperately trying to bandage his wounds on his own.
"They just go and vanish, not even asking if I'm okay. Not asking me if I need help. NO, they just assume Yusuke is all mighty and can do everything on his own. I feel so stupid! I can't even bandage my own stupid injuries..." Yusuke was talking to himself.
"Hey!" Hiei snapped. Yusuke jumped a million miles in the air.
"Holy God!" Yusuke yelped, spinning around. "DON'T SNEAK UP ON ME LIKE THAT, HIEI!!!"
"God! Sor-ry!" Hiei said, sitting cross-legged (indian-style, whatever) on the edge of a table. "You shouldn't talk to yourself, you know. It's a sign of insanity."
"Pfft. That's only if you answer yourself," Yusuke said. He dropped the roll of bandages. "I could use some help here!"
Rolling his eyes, Hiei jumped down from the table. He picked up the roll and started wrapping the bandage around Yusuke's upper arm.
"So what're you guys gonna do with Youko?" Yusuke asked.
"I don't know. Shadow practically had a nervous breakdown because she doesn't know what to do with Shuuichi, or if he'll wake up, but she's pretty much in control with Youko. She already set down her rules... But somehow I don't think he'll obey..."
"Of course I will," Youko said from behind them. Hiei and Yusuke jumped. Hiei dropped the bandage and the whole thing came unwrapped from Yusuke's arm. Youko smothered laughter as Hiei knelt to gether up the mess of cloth.
"Let's see you do better, hot shot!" Hiei snapped, throwing the bandage at Youko. It landed in a tangled mess on top of his head.
"Hell no, man! I'm a theif, not a nurse!" Youko snapped, untangling himself from the bandage and throwing it back at Hiei. The fire demon caught it and stared at it. It was covered in fuzz and hair, and the cloth was already coming apart.
"Yusuke, bandage your own stupid wound!" Hiei said, getting annoyed with trying to untangle, clean, and roll up the cloth. He stuck it in Yusuke's hand and went back to perch on the table. Youko walked over to Shuuichi's bed.
"Just look at him. That used to be me. But not anymore. Now I'm free again, and I intend to make good use of it," Youko said quietly, more to himself than anyone else. "But first... I'm hungry... Did I see goldfish on my way down here?" Youko walked out of the room. A second later, after realizing what he had just heard, Hiei shot out of the room.
"Youko! No! Not the fish! Shadow will have your head on a plate!!!" he called, shooting up the stairs after the spirit fox.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
This story is just something that came into my head because I wanted to write a story with Youko as a permanent character, rather than just surfacing now and then. So he's here, and he'll be here until who knows when. R&R, minna!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~**~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~