Disclaimer: Don't you wish that everyone could have a guy they liked to no end who loved them back unconditionally? I do. Oh, this is supposed to be a disclaimer. Amber, Matt, why don't you guys do it!

Matt: What the hell is this thing? And where am I!

Amber: Everything's black and white except us…

UK: Welcome to my world. Except, when the black and white melts away, everything's imagination-ally colored very well.

Matt: You mean like the episode of Spongebob where he jumps in a box and starts using his (waves both hands into a rainbow) imagi-na-tion.

UK: (sweatdrop) Sort of. Okay, guys, do the disclaimer.

Matt: The what?

Amber: She explained this once…UK does not own YYH or Spongebob or us. He's just her brother and I'm his girlfriend.

UK: (grins) Thank you for people listening to me! On with the story!

Chapter 13: Weaseling

…Bri…

We were fast approaching the short winter break that Japan did allow its students for Christmas time. I sat back in my seat, letting my head fall back near the edge of the desk behind me. Kuronue was messing with Kita, again, and Yue was doing something devious, I'm sure. I wasn't in the mood for either of them. I just wanted to hurry up and get out to buy Kurama a Christmas present.

I'd shopped for all of my family members already. My mother, a silver chain she'd had her eye on. Kuronue, a joke kit that would probably be put to use on the haggard, nonrelated-to-us teachers and Kita. Gina, a new watercolor travel kit (expensive, but worth it). Uncle Gun Wa, a new pet snake that I was having delivered on Christmas Eve. I would give it to him early. Koko and Hiei and my little Jun and Yume…I'd shopped for everyone, okay? I hadn't forgotten a single person.

Except Kurama.

I had never, in all my Christmases and birthdays that I've had with him in this time stream, had trouble getting him a present. So what the hell was different now?

I answered my own question: He knows.

He knows that I'm not the innocent little halfling he'd thought I was.

He knows I'd lied to him for fifteen years.

He knows that I lied.

I lied.

I hadn't thought of it that way before. But for weeks, months, now, that one thought has been eating me alive. Kuronue barely speaks through our link anymore, worried he'll get attacked or something. I'd never take it out on him, but it worried me that I hadn't thought of the fact that I had lied to Kurama.

My best friend.

I moaned softly and nestled my head on my arms. We were between classes again, waiting for Kurama to come in just before lunch to teach us math. Most kids liked Kurama but hated the subject he teaches. I heard this through Kuronue, the more sociable of the two of us. I liked that, I guess. I liked my math teacher, too.

I just liked him more than most of them, and knew him better.

I think many of them would have run screaming from his Youko form. I might have, had I not known who he was. I guess I kind of had come to terms with Youko. I didn't like Kurama's past, but I knew that it couldn't have been helped. I had the Kurama I knew here and now and I probably would never have to face the true past like that ever again. I hoped not.

But without my cat-demon mother around, it would never happen.

Right?

I sighed and stared at the sliding door into the classroom. Almost as if on cue, Kurama slid the door open and walked in, his long red hair flying behind him. Despite his age, he looked good. Actually, it was because of his age that he looked good. To my perception, anyway. I nearly sighed aloud at the thought.

I was killing myself over a man I could never have.

I had responsibilities to my family, to my team. I had to fight in this tournament. I gulped in some air and blew it out through my nose, intent on paying attention to what Kurama was teaching instead of his every movement. He had gained some more scars in the years since his time at Meikou. There was a nasty one right on his face, pale, but deep enough to still leave an indentation.

It just made him all the more sexy.

I growled at myself inwardly. This was getting me nowhere. Kurama set his things up on the desk, ready with the homework he'd assigned yesterday. We went through each question and answer, worked through the ones people didn't get. I'd gotten help from him in the Chronodom for some of them, so I sort of just toyed around with a pencil in order to keep from staring at him.

After class let out, I stayed behind with my obento while Kuronue followed Kita to the second floor again. Kurama set his own on the desk, a rose-colored box with twisting vines on it. I'd painted it myself for him for his thirty-first birthday.

"He's something else," I sighed, staring after my brother's retreating back. "Was he always this focused on girls?"

"Yes, unfortunately," Kurama chuckled. "I got roped into quite a few of his little 'adventures' in that realm. Mostly saving his skin from the women he chose. For some reason, he liked the ones either infinitely weaker than him or twice as powerful."

I laughed at the thought. "Yeah, that sounds like Kuronue."

"Bri…" Kurama sounded reproachful, hopeful. Like he'd been wanting to say something for a long time and hadn't had the courage. I didn't think he ever had that tone. I've never heard it before. I cringed from it and set my blue chopsticks down.

"Yes, Kurama?"

"What was your past like?"

I took a double-take at him and nearly fell over my chair. Nearly, because he caught me and held my chair so I could right myself. I think he was expecting my reaction. It made my heart flutter, but my mind was doing that numb-pain that comes from too much thinking against one's emotions. I swallowed hard as I stared back at him, at his bangs that I'd figured out so well. His bang definitely wasn't jumping.

"I guess you deserve some of the story," I mumbled, hunching over my obento. He was still sitting politely, always politely even around me. It was like he was scared to make a mistake. "I guess you do…considering everything you've done for me…"

"Don't feel obligated to—"

"I am obligated!" I snapped. Then, softer. "Sorry. It's just, my past isn't pretty."

"Neither is mine."

I smirked. But would you believe me that we shared a prettier past together?

"Yeah, I know. Kuronue's told me some of it, so's Koenma and the gang. I've picked up some bits and pieces with my Empathe powers. So, yeah, I know. The great thief of the Makai is seated across from me, the height of sinners."

He grimaced, something almost humorous to see. "When you put it that way…"

"Don't worry. You've more than redeemed yourself." Unlike me. "In the other time stream, I was born quarter cat demon. My mother, Tsuki, hated me and my father. He was still Marion Wolf. She killed him and sent me away. I somehow managed to meet Koko, who was named Keiko in that stream.

"I managed to find a boyfriend and some things happened with some demons. I won't go into it, mostly cause at the time, I wasn't in control of my own Empathe powers. And then Tsuki pushed me into a time portal into my boyfriend's past, where we were nearly killed by himself. Tsuki was completely unkillable, so I did the only thing I could. I went back in time and prevented her birth. So, I was a wandering soul. Because of my Empathe skills, I was able to keep my memories. Koko did too, and so did Botan and Gun Wa. That's all.

"Are you happy now?"

Kurama blinked at such a rapid, cold rendition of my "past". "Koko, Botan, and Gun Wa also remembered this other time?"

"Yes," I nodded. "And so did Hiei, come to think. Hiei was Koko's lover in the other time stream. They mated. That's why Hiei remembered her."

Kurama laughed and held his head lightly in one hand. He shook his head. "It seems almost impossible, improbable. And yet, everything fits. Before you were born, Hiei just appeared one day with a girl. None of us knew what to think. She was a quarter coyote."

"Don't coyotes usually eat foxes?" I asked with a wry smirk on my face. I just had to picture it now: Ayame eating Youko. It was a rather humorous image.

"Yes, they do. I was lucky to have surpassed most coyotes by the time I was five hundred," Kurama said. He did not smile and he wasn't dissuaded from continuing to question me. "But why did you wait so long to return? Koko was born long before you. In fact, she almost seemed to be keeping your father from women."

I smiled at the memory. "That was my doing. I wanted to be too young for my old boyfriend, you see."

"Too young? Why, Bri?"

I pursed my lips. "Wouldn't you if the same man had threatened to murder you in his past? He wouldn't recognize me, at all, and even then it wasn't certain we would be the same people." We were the same, sort of, but I didn't say that.

Kurama nodded slowly. "Yes, I suppose. Have you met the man who was your boyfriend?"

I bit my lip. "Yeah. Yeah, I have."

"Is he…different?"

"No," I smiled. "Only older. Wiser by a few years. I decided not to pursue him, anyway. He has become a respectable man of the community. I don't want to ruin that, even if he is still single." I ate a few bits of my vegetables before continuing. "Besides, he would never think of me that way."

"I think he would, Bri," Kurama said earnestly. "Why not try? Even if he is a few years older than you. Pursue him. Ask him out, see if he wouldn't. You never know until you try."

I stared at him, at a loss for words. He had no idea what he was asking me to do. He had no idea that the man he was asking me to pursue was himself. No idea. And yet here he was, trying to hook me up with someone he had no idea the identity of, nor the actual age of. I don't think he knew what he was asking.

"You can't be serious," I said breathlessly. "I can't do that. He…he would reject me. He is over twice my age, as he sees it!" Well, he knows I'm really something his age, but…

"And?"

"Society would damn us both!"

Kurama's lithe right brow arched in humor. "Bridget Kokomo Wolf, did I just hear a real curse word from you?"

I carefully narrowed my eyes. "I won't ask him. You won't find out who he is, and you will never be able to force me to ask him out. I will live without love."

"For hundreds of years?" Kurama asked, the brow rising higher. Now it was more in surprise than humor.

"Yes, for hundreds of years! I can live without a man, thank you very much." I jumped up from the seat, snapped the lid onto my empty obento box, and marched out of the room. I caught the final words from Kurama just as the door slid shut.

"I don't think you'll make it that long."

I growled under my breath, my blood coursing through my veins like white water. Hot tears fell from my eyes as I found a little niche in the girl's bathroom. Kurama, what are you doing to me? Do you realize what you've started?

I curled up under the sink and let the tears fall.

…

…Kurama…

I confronted Hiei and Koko that same day. I was shocked, and slightly hurt, that two of my best friends had kept such vital information from me. But I think I knew that I would never have found out except from Bri herself. She seemed to be keeping it only from me, as even Jun seemed to know something of her "past", if only just the fact that she had one aside from this time stream.

"Bri didn't want to hurt you," Koko said, her voice softest, plainest since I'd first met her at Meikou almost sixteen years ago. "What did she tell you?"

"She told me about her boyfriend, though refused to say much more to his identity," I said.

I was helping her try and get a rowdy Jun into bed for the night. His hair had turned into the same flaming darkness as Hiei's, but his beautiful blue eyes were his mother's. They were the same eyes that Koko and Bri both had inherited from Marion and Gun Wa's father, in the exact same shape and color. Despite Koko's normal behavior versus Bri's, I knew that they were related.

"Jun, get into bed," Koko said. "You won't get sweet snow for breakfast!"

I smiled as Jun immediately zipped under the covers—having inherited his father's speed through genes and training. Hiei's son was truly a character. His love for sweet snow was unrivaled, except perhaps by his father. Hiei was in the living room, letting me talk to Bri's cousin alone. I think he was grateful for the reprieve from attempting to get his son to sleep.

Koko tucked Jun into the silken sheets, kissed his forehead, and led me out of the room. It amazed me at times how motherly Koko was, and even how fatherly Hiei could be. He was still his same old callous self, but he still worked as best he could to teach his boy right. I had seen the same reaction in Yomi, during the first "Election Tournament", when he was teaching Shura. Except I knew also that Jun had been conceived in love, not with any plans in mind for Demon world takeover.

Which, fortunately, had yet to come about.

I followed Koko into the kitchen, where she prepared a small pot of hot water. In one cup, she poured hot chocolate, in the other, coffee. She knew how much I hated the bitter taste of coffee. It was my least favorite plant. My favorite, after the rose, was the cacao, the bean from which chocolate was made.

But I had to be careful. Large quantities of chocolate had very…interesting effects on kitsune. I was lucky that my body wasn't entire human or kitsune, neither partling nor full blood. I was a paradox of biology, as Gun Wa Wolf loved to point out. His daughter hadn't inherited his love for the physical bodies of life.

Koko sighed, sipping at the bitter coffee black. I cringed at the thought, but I was far too focused on waiting for her answer to really drink my chocolate.

"Damn it, Kurama, you just had to weasel it out of her, didn't you?"

Koko slammed the coffee down on the kitchen table, sloshing the hot liquid everywhere, including on her hands and lap. She didn't flinch. Her eyes, so like and yet so unlike Bri's, were trained on mine, a scowl similar to Hiei's on her lips. Hiei threw a towel at her before standing in the window overlooking their home outside. He still had that habit.

Koko blotted at the coffee. "I'm sorry. I can't give you the answer you're looking for, and if you ask for it, I will not answer so you better damn well keep your mouth shut about it."

Calmly, I nodded. "I won't, then. But you know I will find a way to figure out who he is. I want Bri to be happy. Living the lifespan of a fox without a mate, without the same mate she had, will kill her."

Koko smiled sadly. "It will kill her even more if I'm the one to let him know."

"I understand," I sighed. "Thank you. Tell Jun I will see him soon. Hiei?"

"Hn."

"Damn it, answer him, Snowball!" Koko yelled, rubbing at her temples. "Damn tiring…"

Hiei glanced at his mate, then at me. "I will see you soon."

"Thank you, Hiei," I smiled. It was interesting, how much Hiei had been changed by Koko and yet how much he still was like himself. If Tsuki had pushed me through a portal from the past to now, I would hardly recognize him.

Wait…Tsuki?

Who was Tsuki?

…

…

…

Okay, Bri finally told Kurama something. But to her own heartbreak…I cried at this chapter. I really did. T.T

Peeka-chan: So did I. I thought, well, why don't we be more interesting opening up the chapters? Hence why my totally-oblivious brother and his girlfriend appeared. Neither like or even have seen YYH. Oo Don't worry, we shan't be killin' the Kuronue. I love him too much. I was gonna let Bri actually do something to him, but I decided she would be lenient.

Kuramafan: Ohhh…Okay. And I proved yet another human fact that you can't keep a secret no matter how hard you try. That will be yet again proved later on, I think. Good, no, great guess on the Yue thing—really. But it wasn't her who organized the tournament. (grins) You'll just have to wait and see. I know, isn't that funny how I give out hints in my reviews? No one reads them all, so they only get bits and pieces…Lucky you. I wonder if anyone else reads the others. (looks over self) Nope, I'm not fried ugly kitten yet.

Lucifer: Oh, I could have done something normal, but why be normal when you can think of something like the Chronodom? (grins) That's what I like about writing in a world you've been writing in for a while. Things pop up that wouldn't have otherwise. Nope, Bri is going to remain the same age she is, no questions asked. The relationship will work out, though. I guarantee it. (grins)

Black Cello: I am a very, very slow beta-reader, but I offer my very, very humble services to the cause. I updated it before then, so you'll just have to wait until the fourth to read the rest. I'll prolly have about five chapters more up by then. Italy! Send me some pictures, please, I love to draw also and I'd love to see some of their architecture. I need some inspiration for buildings.

SilverDragon: Marion is no longer alive, but Ayame is. She lives in the Makai now. Bat-boy didn't get it, unfortunately. I might consider getting him back later, though…(mischievous grin)