Yutaan: I AM SO SORRY! I don't mean to miss updates, I really don't…. but after some severe YYH withdrawal (cured by a healthy dose of Kurama-kun from the DVD my li'l bro got me) and multiple crashes of my hard drive… Well…. Sigh.

Ashley:looking back over the whole fic: Have you noticed that you have NEVER updated on time? Not once. How about we just celebrate the fact that the lazy author updated instead of studying for finals?

Yutaan: (0.0) …Ouch. Disclaimer: I do not own YuYu. If I did, I would screw it up beyond repair. :kicks TV: LIKE YOU, STUPID CARTOON NETWORK! CANCELLING A MASTERPIECE LIKE YUYU FOR ZATCH BELL! GODDAMMIT! Ah yes…. Once again, I'm sorry…. But I love my B-Day YuYu DVD! Oh happy day!

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Chapter Seven: Murder?

Yusuke glared down at his shoes. Stupid mom, deciding all of a sudden that she wanted to cook a meal, making him go out and buy a cookbook… Stupid bookstore clerk standing behind him the whole time…. Stupid alarm, going off just because he had a few manga shoved under his coat….

Yusuke kicked at some slushy, gray-crusted snow left beside the road. His mom had been all perky and happy - for once without being "under the influence" – and she and all the other girls had been like, "Go get us a cookbook, Yusuke! We're gonna make smoothies! And then we're gonna make some chocolate crap thing! And blah blah blah! And blah crap blah blah!" He was cold and hungry and he didn't want to walk the rest of the way back to his house. Stupid girls. Stupid everything! He wished everybody else was gone!

Little did he know….

Yusuke turned onto his own street, still looking downward, when suddenly he felt a chill travel up his spine. He jerked his head up and glanced around, finally shrugging off his apprehension. But still, he unconsciously hurried to get to his own house.

When our demon-fighting juvenile delinquent seized the doorknob, he felt another tremor beneath his skin. This time, however, he was able to place the reason within a moment.

…It was the silence. He had left a house crammed with estrogen – his mother, Keiko, Botan, Shizuru and Yukina. They had all (well, except Shizuru) been yapping and squealing and giggling so loudly the neighbors might mistake the little cook-off for some sort of orgy. (A/N: What is an orgy, anyway?) But now….

Yusuke's out-of-style slicked-back hair prickled upward slightly, and he almost violently opened the door, putting all his weight against it. The door screeched as it opened, giving the effect of knives scraping across a window.

Yusuke took one look inside and reeled.

It looked like an explosion of red. His feet slipped in it, and he landed butt-first in a scarlet puddle. He splashed as he hit the floor, and sheets of crimson arced over his head and drenched him in a warm, sticky, coppery-tasting wave.

Copper?

Yusuke hauled himself to his feet. His hands made smears along the wall. Bright red. Liquid. He looked at his fingers, his hands, the vivid bloody color dripping down and imbedding itself in the lines of his palms. It slid over his wrists and soaked maroon into his jacket.

It was the afterimage of every fight, every demonic encounter, ever punch and kick and badly-dodged blast he'd ever faced…. He was a seasoned street veteran. He could recognize blood.

"Mom!" His voice echoed. The hallway normally never looked so big. Crimson sunrises were splashed on the cream-colored walls, dripping scarlet sunbeams to the floor. No one answered. "Mom! Keiko!" His throat closed around the words. He coughed. "Keiko!" Something dripped. Something moved.

Kriiiiiiiiiii-…. The door to the closet creaked softly and suddenly burst open. Yusuke swallowed his shriek; what emerged was a strangled noise. He leaped away and grabbed a slippery lamp, ripping the plug from the socket. He raised it over his head as a shield -

And Yukina fell out of the closet, landing on her knees in the mess. Her kimono was stained red-brown, and she was hanging onto a bent eggbeater like a club. She looked up, eyes wide, the same color as the floor and splashes on the walls. " – Oh -! Oh!"

Yusuke stopped his lamp in mid-swing.

Yukina scrambled up, still staring at the space slightly above his head. "Y-You came back!" She was breathing hard, sucking deeply on air, as though she'd been holding her breath, trying to quell the slightest sound. "I – I – I tried to stop them – b-but they wouldn't -" She shook her head and whimpered. "And your mother – she wouldn't listen!"

A thought began to form in the back of Yusuke's head, even more terrible than that of a mass murder. He pushed past Yukina, sliding on the wet floorboards, and slammed his shoulder against the kitchen door. It stuck. He pulled back to ram it again.

Yukina stumbled after him and grabbed his arm. "Don't go in! Atsuko-san might still be -"

A horrible screaming, grinding noise erupted from inside the kitchen, not unlike that of a chainsaw. Yusuke heard his mother giggling and Botan shrieking, "Atsuko-san! Turn it off! Please!"

Yusuke reared backwards, dislodging Yukina, and crashed full-force into the door, absorbing the brunt of the impact in his shoulder. The hinges squealed, the bottom frame growled, and the door popped open and deposited our delinquent in the heap on the kitchen tile. He scrambled up, clutching his lamp-club.

His mother was cackling in the middle of the kitchen, drenched in sticky red liquid and wielding… a blender. Keiko and Botan were cowering in terror behind the counter, trying (unsuccessfully) to avoid the large globs of scarlet fluid being hurled through the air. And Shizuru was standing in the corner, still-lit cigarette stuck behind her crimson-spattered ear, trying doggedly to yank the plug from the socket.

…

Yusuke stared for a few moments, then shouted, "MOM!"

Atsuko turned around, blender held high over her head, just as Shizuru gave the plug one final wrench. The wire emerged with a THOK and the blender screeched, rattled, and finally gurgled into silence.

Atsuko blinked at him innocently. "Oh, hi, honey…." she said vaguely, and put the blender down. She stuck a spoon into the blood-red swill it and lifted said spoon up to her son's mouth. "Try our smoothie!"

"S-Smoo…thie…?" Yusuke stared down at the glop in horror. "What KIND of smoothie? Fingers! Keiko, lemmee see your hands!"

"Fingers? Oh honey… you're so funny…. ha," said Atsuko, and thrust in the spoon. "I added salt to make it interesting!"

"Yes, I mean…" Botan chirruped as she emerged, "I admit Atsuko got a little overexcited when we started adding raspberries, but you know how things are…."

"Raspberries," Yusuke said, still in shock. Smoothie erupted from his mouth.

"And strawberries, and cherries, and some watermelon…." Keiko counted on her (perfectly-okay) fingers, "…and ketchup. Yukina has a thing for ketchup."

"Yum," said Shizuru disinterestedly, plunking down at the dripping table. She put her cigarette back into her mouth. "So, grease-boy… where's our cookbook?"

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Yutaan:sigh: Thank you all so much for continuing to read this fic even though I'm such bad updater…. Seven chapters in a year… Gawd….

Ashley: Was this thing confusing? Who the hell adds SALT to smoothies:huggles Yutaan: Ah, whatever...