Okay, guys who actually read this portion, I have to vent some. How many read the nice opening that "Amber and Matt" did for us last time? (sees many hands raised, most looking at her confusedly (sigh)) Okay, they did the disclaimer last time. I said "wouldn't it be nice if you actually found the person you were going to spend the rest of your life with?" Not a day after I put that up, guess what?

Matt and Amber broke up.

But that's not all! Okay, get this. Rose, who is Amber's mother, was the one who did all the talking to do the "break up". Amber sat there in the car, talking into her phone to another boy. Um, hello! Does anyone see what's wrong with this?

Anyway, my brother attempted suicide.

How nice, right?

Well, he's in counseling right now. I am soooo not going to do anything so utterly callous and mean to any of my boyfriends, should I get one. I mean, they were going to get married! What would have happened if they'd gotten married? Oo I don't even want to think about it.

Kurama, cakes, can you do the disclaimer for me? I have to go console a broken heart right now.

Kurama: I will, Lady Kitten. Our dear author does not own Yu Yu Hakusho. Please, enjoy the chapter.

Chapter 14: In Hot Water

…Bri…

I sighed and opened my notes. We had a test at the end of the week in math, just before Christmas break, and I wanted to study for it without Kurama's help. Without him confusing me by hinting at asking my boyfriend from the past. Who, conveniently enough, was himself. I sighed, staring at the doodle-ridden pages of loose-leaf paper in my red math binder. I couldn't help it, I still drew in the margins when taking notes. Old habits die hard.

Then, on the same page as the day I'd told Kurama about my past, I saw her. Gabriel, the angel of fate, looking away from me. She no longer looked quite as clumsy as my first painting had been, but the composition, the pose, the face, the hair, everything was in place the same. I'd memorized that painting. This was the same. I turned the page, to the next day. The same drawing. It was the same.

Gabriel.

Gabriel.

Gabriel.

Every page for two weeks, covered in the exact, the exact same drawing, pencil stroke for stroke. Why? I always doodled without thinking. What had been in the back of my subconscious to draw Gabriel fifteen consecutive times, during the same class?

I grabbed my history notebook, my English. No…just doodles there. Just people from my class, or the empty bird's nest outside my window. It was just Kurama's class, then.

Why? What had possessed me to draw the angel of fate?

I did the one thing I could think of: I called Koko. She was in the Makai now, but Kurama had managed to tap the phones or something so that we could still contact her and the others. Nearly everyone except Kuwabara, Kurama, and me lived in the Makai now. I tapped my toes impatiently until, finally, Koko's voice came over the phone.

"This better be damn good, it's two in the damn morning!" she slurred into the receiver. I winced, glancing at the clock. I'd forgotten my late-night drawing sessions had always been unbelievable, especially coupled with my even-later-night study sessions.

"Sorry, Kokomo," I said. "But…"

How was I supposed to put this? It was two in the morning, and I was calling about my repeated drawings of an angel I thought I'd only drawn once.

"Bri, what is it?" Koko's voice was softer.

"I just opened my math notebook to study, and…" I bit my lip. "I saw Gabriel there."

She hissed. "What!"

"Gabriel, the angel of—"

"I know what the hell she is!" Koko snapped. "I mean why the damn hell are you drawing her in your math notes? Aren't those doodle things like from the back of your head or whatever?"

Thank you, kami, for Koko actually listening to me. "Yes, yes, that's what I mean. Not just once, Koko. Fifteen times. Fifteen class times in a row, she's in my notes. Same pose, same strokes, everything."

"Damn."

Leave it to Koko to sum everything up into one word, and that word being "damn".

"What do you think it means? Gina said the first time I drew her that Gabriel points to fate every time someone conjures her image without meaning to…"

"Er…Bri, I'm not the person to ask about that," Koko said. "Look, er, maybe it's a coincidence?" Koko being shy about anything was a bad sign.

"You know it's not."

"What do you want me to do about it, Bri? I can't do anything about it. I can't even give you solid advice, okay? Damn it…"

"What?"

"Well, I kind of burned myself a couple of weeks ago, and it was a little worse than I thought…"

"Ouch. What were you doing?"

"Er…baking cookies for Jun." I could tell she was lying, but I wasn't going to press it. It probably had something to do with Hiei. I mean, he was a half fire demon, right?

"I guess I'd better let you get back to sleep…"

"Yeah. And Bri? Listen…Don't do anything I wouldn't do, okay?"

"You've done a lot of things I wouldn't do," I laughed.

"Yeah. Exactly. Bye, sis."

And she hung up.

I stared at the phone, wondering what she meant.

Just as I set the phone back on the cradle, it rang again. Perplexed at the timing, and at the late hour someone was calling me at, I picked it up again. Slowly, I said: "H-Hello?"

"Meet me at the coffee shop, Bri," came Kurama's voice. "I know you can't sleep."

I could almost hear the words. You'll get hurt again if you don't sleep. It was like before I'd mastered my Empathe skills again, and Kurama was asking me to shut my eyes for him. I nearly sobbed into the phone, but somehow I managed to keep my voice level.

"How did you know that?"

"Because I can't, either."

This was nothing out of the ordinary, of course. I had on several occasions called Kurama up in the middle of the night and found him awake. What surprised me was the fact that Kurama realized that connection, and was acting on it in a new way. I suddenly realized that he was asking me out.

"Okay, see you in a few," I said.

I pulled on my coat and some shoes at the door and ran to catch the trolley as it came past. I didn't realize that I was crying until a tear hit the back of my naked hand. I swiped at them bitterly. Kurama had no idea what he was doing. There was no reason to get him upset over something so trivial as my little crush on my math teacher.

I knew it was more, but he would never believe it.

I doubted it, even if I told him that he was my boyfriend from the other time. I doubted my old boyfriend. I'd had several long years, watching Koko and the others grow up from babies, watching Gun Wa begin Meikou High, watching the birds outside room A2, watching Yusuke and the gang fight their battles with my own spiritual eyes. It wasn't until I had been able to see it from a distance that I realized it.

Everything about Kurama and I had been based on trivial things, things that changed over time. I was a liability, someone to be protected. I still loved Kurama, but I knew that he did not love me the same way. It was in the way he moved now. He moved only as a friend would, the ever-polite, ever-kind, ever-shoulder-to-cry-on friend. My older, wiser best friend, the one I could come to in a pinch.

The one I loved was a shadow of my imagination. It would never have worked out, because it wasn't working out now.

I stumbled off the Nemoi trolley a few stores before the little Coffee Coffee shop that Kurama had discovered a little bit from the arcade. He loved their hot chocolate, something I hadn't counted much on. Kurama had come to love hot chocolate almost as much as he liked rainbow trout. I was always making it for him, but he still preferred Coffee Coffee's version.

I swiped at my tears again, planning to tell him it was just sleep tugging at me. He would believe that, anyone would. The only one who wouldn't have believed it was Kuronue and that's only because he could read my mind. I trudged into the Coffee Coffee shop and quickly found Kurama's red hair amidst the blue paint of the walls. I slid into the seat across from him and cocked my brow in what I hoped was a perfect imitation of his.

"Morning," he said.

"Morning."

He chuckled softly. "What brings you in here? Boy troubles?"

His fingers gently brushed at my eyes. I pulled away.

"You called and asked me."

"So I did."

The waitress brought two steaming cups of hot chocolate, then retreated into the back room of the shop. We were alone.

"Bri, may I ask something?"

"Sure. Don't expect an answer, though."

Kurama smiled. "Diplomatic, as always."

"Yeah, I guess." I sighed. "What's the question?"

"Why don't you want to see your boyfriend again?"

"I already told you, his past form almost murd—"

"I will not accept that answer from you, Bri," he said calmly. So damn calmly. I need to stop hanging out with Koko. "I know there is more here than you want to reveal."

I winced. He was right.

"Okay, fine. I…The love that we had seems…shallow now. It seems like we were caught in the moment, instead of fully in love. Like if we were separated for a while, we wouldn't feel the same when we came back together again."

Kurama closed his eyes, sipping his hot chocolate. Had I not known him, I would have thought he was being rude. But I knew that he was thinking hard about what I'd said, and he would have another question to ask.

"Is this 'shallow love', as you call it, still the way that you feel, Bridget?"

I hated when he called me that. He knew that it made me think, and almost always I had a headache later. I sipped at my own hot chocolate, letting the velvety foam marshmallows caress my tongue. I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I still felt the same. In fact, it was far greater now than I had ever felt before.

Now that I knew, really knew, what love was.

"I am more in love with him now than I was before," I admitted softly.

"Then why?"

"I don't know what he'll think. And if he rejects me, which is highly possible, I will not be able to take it."

"But what if he says yes?"

I smiled sadly, letting a tear fall. "I will wait for him to make that decision. Because if I do anything, everything will fall to pieces around me."

He said nothing, only sipped at his hot chocolate. It was cold now, just like mine. I still couldn't stop sipping, just letting his companionable silence envelope us both. In all the years I'd been the sister to Kuronue, I had become used to noise, and could barely function without it. Now, however, all I wanted was the silence that Kurama offered. It was the silence of hope.

Hope that maybe, he'd take the hint.

I didn't want to be bothered to ask the man who had been my boyfriend again. I wanted Kurama to come to me. Only then would I know that everything was all right.

…

…Koko…

Christmas at last. I used to hate Christmastime, because Tsuki hated the holiday. I used to stare at all the gifts, at all the other kids with their new toys and wish that I had a mother or a father like theirs. Gun Wa was never around at Christmas, always in Japan. But he did always send me some new Japanese toys. Never actually came home.

But that was in the past that never was, and now I was with a family that cared about me. My father was here with me, and we'd never gotten out of contact. I had rejoined my mother once Hiei and I moved to the Makai. I wished that she came over more often, or I had more time to visit her. As it was, we rarely saw each other.

But she still came home for the holidays, including the obscure American holiday of Thanksgiving that Hiei continually said was "pointless". It was Jun's favorite holiday, just before Christmas and Halloween. We took him to Human World for that.

We had gathered at Yusuke's "house" for the party, including everyone from Human World. This was my dad's first trip here, as well as Gina's and Gunner's. Bri and Kuronue even brought their mother with them, to her protest. The huge banquet hall that Yusuke usually held community meetings in had been decorated with all the usual Christmas things. A pine tree that Hiei and Kurama had found was decorated head to foot in candy canes, baubles, and lights. Yume and Jun were fighting over who would eat one first after the presents were opened.

Let me mention right now, I think that room was hardly big enough for the people, let alone the number of presents that had ended up under that tree. All the same, everyone was in a pleasant mood. Hiei had even said "hello" to Kuwabara. I looked around for Yukina and spotted her on the other side of the room, talking to Gina and Aunt Gunner. I often wondered why Gina and Aunt Gunner had never gotten married. They were obviously in love themselves.

"Your friends certainly have a way of celebrating," my mother chuckled softly. "Jun is growing up so quickly."

"Yeah. Just yesterday, I was ordering Hiei to change his diapers," I said. Mother laughed and offered me a one-armed hug. "Kokomo, if I didn't know any better, I'd think you were my age."

I cringed inwardly. With two completely different "childhoods" in my memory, I was a little closer to being her age. I laughed it off and glanced round the room again. Yume stopped arguing with Jun only to glance directly at me, then at her father. I watched, curious, as the young raven-haired girl ran into her father's arms.

"Hey, you guys!" Yusuke yelled at the top of his lungs after a moment. The room fell silent. "Are we going to open presents or are we all gonna stand here gawking at the tree!"

The room literally shook with laughter. A moment of silence and then…

Pandemonium.

I won't bore you with a list of what I received from each person, but I will tell you that Yume and Jun each got a candy cane before Keiko and I confiscated the rest from the tree. I think the biggest thing about this Christmas was the simple fact that we all could be together, without worrying about anything.

Well, except for Bri.

But you knew that.

She ended up getting Kurama a custom watch, engraved with a rose, and a painting that she'd done a little while ago of him in both his Youko and his human form. I didn't find out until after the party what she'd received from him. She was, of course, panicking. Bri had become so paranoid, it was almost pathetic now.

"It's a damn bracelet with a damn cat on it, Bri, it's no secret that you like cats!"

"But I only told him in passing that I did!"

"You also told him that you were a quarter cat already."

She stopped short, her eyes wide. "I did?"

I sighed in exasperation. "Yes, Bri, you've told him you were a partling cat. How else would you have destroyed Tsuki? Think for a second, idiot."

She scowled. "I'm not an idiot."

"You are from where I'm standing."

I was standing in a knee-high pile of Christmas wrappings, which we were cleaning up with the help of Keiko, Gina, and Kuronue. I'd explained to everyone already about our dealings with the past. Plus, there were a few helpers who were trying to get Bri and Kurama back together. I couldn't help, though. Some stupid rules that I hadn't paid attention to. Again.

Bri threw a pile of Christmas bows—all green—into the black trash bag she was holding. It was almost poetic. The bows were all the same color as Kurama's eyes, and she was throwing them into that black oblivion. But if she'd only stop and look, she'd see for herself that Kurama's feelings were the same as hers.

Why is everyone around me so damn blind?

Oh, yeah.

Love.

That's why I thought I hated Snowball before I mated with him.

"Kokomo," Bri said calmly, tying the bag viciously. "I cannot fall for Kurama again. I made myself far younger than him on purpose. You know it."

The resolved look in her blue eyes told all.

She was twice as against getting back together with Kurama than she was before.

"Bri, Okuro." Aunt Ichigo had come through the door, her face a pale, sickly gray. Her illusion was failing, her ears and tails flickering in and out. I dropped my trash bag. Kurama was holding her up.

"I think she caught a flu," Kurama said quietly. Bri was already at her mother's side, all thoughts of telling me off about Kurama gone. Kuronue wasn't far behind. Ichigo was the only one among us who didn't know the full story of her children. It seemed almost wrong, but Bri had stood firmly against telling their mother anything. Protection, or so she said.

"Mother?" Bri asked.

"Take me home, I'll be fine," Aunt Ichigo said, smiling. It always amazed me how she could smile through anything. "Bri, you stay here with your cousin. Okuro can take me home."

"A-Are you sure, mother?" Bri asked. She held her mothers arm delicately, like one might hold rice paper, or a small child.

"Yes, Bridget, I'll be fine."

Kuronue led her toward the door, but she collapsed before they made it. He glanced over his shoulder in sheer terror. "She isn't breathing!"

…

…

…

TT I had to do this one, too. God, I'm just obsessed with death, aren't I? Okay, and the Coffee Coffee thing is actually a scene I snitched from the story Bri Wolf is actually supposed to be the character in. She loves hot chocolate. It borders on obsession. And who are the "helpers" that Koko has managed to slip up to us?

I tell you what, Kurama and Bri are the only ones who don't know. I'm weird.

Hey, I've got a question for ya'll. Anyone want to help me come up with the prank for Kuronue, Kurama, and Yomi (you'll see)?

Princess Kandra: Well, cakes, they end up basically just not caring, really. I'll just say that. But, you shall soon see more! Um…I shan't explain any more.

Sillylittlenothing: Oh, yes, we shall soon rectify that situation. But there is the matter of the tournament…Hmm. What will that journey reveal? (evil grin)

Peeka-chan: What kind of prank did you have in mind? (grin) We shall also be getting Kurama back for instigating it, and we'll be getting back at Yomi for something later on, too. Have anything in mind? I'm drawing blanks. T.T

Kohari: Everyone is blinded by love, unfortunately. Even Kurama-kun. But he shall see, oh, yes, he shall see…(evil grin)

SilverDragon: Well, Kurama won't let a sleeping kitten sprawl for long. In fact, he's still poking at her. I like the next chapter, though. It spawned the fan art.

Kuramafan: I'm glad I'm not fried, too. Irony is the spice of life, and I'm afraid I've gotten too much of the chili pepper type. You know I've already written the chapter where Kurama finally finds out all, but did you also know I've written all but the last chapter? Heh, I'm almost done. Just need to write one more…

Lucifer: Kurama is quite the weasel now, isn't he? I got the idea that he's a "weasel info out" kind of person from the episode where he's talking to the parasite demon hidden in Kokoda, his little stepbrother. He tells the demon that he doesn't have to kill him to make him beg for Kurama to take its life. He has "methods". So, I figured he was probably a good interrogator.

Black Cello: (sweatdrop) Better the second time? I don't think so, really…I used to slide on hardwood floors in my tights when I was little. I loved doing that, and body surfing in the ocean on top of my brother's back. He was younger than me. Aren't I cruel? I actually got the idea for this situation from the manga of CardCaptor Sakura. Syaoran wanted Sakura to be happy and offered to help her get Yukito…and a buncha other things, too. I don't remember it all. It's probably not as similar as I thought. Bring back pictures! Me want to see!