Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Yu Haksho. I wish I didn't own Jun. I also don't own "Gold Digger", which is the song that inspired this fic and Jun's character.

This thing started off that Kurama was going to get seduced by Jun and then almost killed…but something else got in the way. Say, love?

Chapter 2: Roomies

Kurama awoke the next morning after a strange series of dreams about some girl in a gold mine. One minute, he was helping her oversee the workers. The next, he was one of the workers. He threw the pick into the rock and handed over several pieces of gold to the girl. Her face was shadowed, so he hadn't a clue who she was.

With a sigh, he slid out of the lower bunk. He brushed his red hair, now reaching down to his waist, and threw on a pair of jeans. It really seemed weird to him that he was allowed to wear his shoes in the building. Just the differing culture, he supposed. Culture shock was not a new thing to him, but it always held surprises.

He pulled a plain white t-shirt over his head and, just as he was just about to walk out the door, a loud knocking came from the ceiling. Kurama glanced up at the hole. He'd nearly forgotten it.

"Yo, Shuichi, you awake!" Came Criss's loud yell through the ceiling.

"Yes."

"You're decent, right?"

"Er…yes."

The board in the ceiling slid off and Criss's honey brown hair descended into the room, followed by her head. "Just wanted to know if you wanted to go with me to help greet our roomies. I'm doing the welcome in the chapel, but you can help if you want."

Kurama was still a little in shock from seeing her head upside down, coming from the hole in the ceiling. It was really the first time he got a good look at her face. Her eyes were large and bluish green and although she herself was pudgy, her face seemed only baby-fat-ish. Today, she was wearing a cat collar around her throat and a black t-shirt that said, "Bite Me" in large, silver letters.

"Um…no, that's all right, I'll just sit with the rest of the students…"

"Okay, suit yourself. Hey, this is actually kinda handy. Just so long as we remember to knock first and all."

He chuckled and nodded in agreement. "I will inform my roommate as such."

"Ooh, big words," Criss smirked. "Where'd you learn such good English?"

"Practice," Kurama said. He wasn't about to say that he'd lived in America about two hundred years ago. That would be a bad idea.

"All I can say is major kudos to you. I'm still in the super-simple hello-how-are-you-I-am-fine stage in Japanese. As you probably noticed."

"Ano…Are you going to hang upside down all day?"

"Oh! C'mon, we gotta get to the chapel!"

Criss's head vanished and was replaced by her feet. She dropped from the ceiling into Kurama's room and dashed out onto the stairs. Kurama wasn't very far behind. He didn't know where the chapel was yet. Criss's enthusiasm amused him, though he tried not to show it on his face. He succeeded well in that endeavor, as always.

The campus during the day was much different from the night. Kurama could see that all of the trees had been meticulously planted and trimmed, the grass was green and short, and the sidewalks were wide and immaculately clean. All of the buildings were made of brick, though some were obviously older than others. The administrations building looked to be the oldest, from what Kurama could see.

"I'll give you and your roomie and mine a good tour after the welcome," Criss said. "I know this campus can get confusing if you don't know where you're going. Sometimes, I forget where I'm going, too."

"Yes, I agree. It does seem rather confusing."

They came to a halt outside of a church-like building beside a wide parking lot. There were several cherry trees around it, beginning to make cherries at last for the dawning fall. A large bell at the top of the building was sounding loudly.

"This is the chapel," Criss said. "Obviously enough. You get a seat, I've gotta go around to the back."

Kurama entered the building alone and sat about three pews away from the one-step platform that was the stage. The chapel was a quaint little building with a high ceiling for good acoustics and several dozen old wooden pews. The first ten or so on each side of a wide aisle had threadbare red cushions. Kurama sat on it and decided that it probably was best that he had it.

"Well, well, look what the wolf brought in," said a purring voice that was music to Kurama's ears. He looked up and saw a beautiful girl with waist-length, curly black hair and gorgeous blue eyes. Her skin was a silky copper. She was a little shorter than him, but not by much. She smiled at him, revealing straight white teeth. "Who might you be, hmm?"

"Ku—I mean, Shuichi. Shuichi Minamino."

Smooth move, Shuichi, Youko rolled his eyes inwardly.

"Ooh, what is that, Italian?"

Not very bright, this one, Youko said.

Kurama tried not to laugh. That's not very nice, Youko. "No, it's Japanese. I'm from Tokyo."

Whoever said I'm nice?

No one did. Say, where were you this morning?

Asleep. Ningen are so stupid, putting us on a plane at midnight…

The girl smiled wider, completely unaware of the two 'personalities' in Kurama's head bantering on about her.

"You'll have to tell me about it later. I'm Princess Juniper Gonzalez. You may call me Jun, if you like." Her melodious voice graced him with a laugh. "Oh, someone get that off the stage. Ugh. What an eyesore."

Kurama glanced up on the stage. The only person there was Criss. He was a little stung by Jun's words, but he shrugged it off. Criss knew how to take care of herself, she'd already proven that to him. Besides, Jun must have meant it as a joke. She was laughing… Kurama liked hearing her laugh.

Yeah, me too…When are we going to seduce her?

Youko!

What?

"Hello, everybody," Criss said. "I'm one of the few freshman on campus that was able to be here before anyone else, so I've got a pretty good idea what it's like to live here already. At least, without a mod, without a roomie, and without the rest of ya'll!

"So, I'd just like to welcome you to Jefferson College. If you will come up here when I call your name, Ms. Stephings will give you your dorm, room number, and key. Be sure you get to know your roomies a little tonight!"

Criss started calling names. Slowly, people trickled up to the front, where an elderly woman with a shock of thick white hair gave them a sheet of paper with a key taped to it. Jun went up before Kurama. She blew a kiss back to him before strolling up to the front for her key. Nearly every male present stared after her.

Including Kurama.

I saw that, Shuichi. You want her.

We are not going to do that.

At long last, everyone was gone. Ms. Stephings approached him.

"I saw that," she said, chuckling knowingly. "Quite a catch there, Mr. Minamino. Think you can handle her?"

Kurama blushed at the reference. Criss smirked.

"Ah, is the foxy boy trapped in the hunter's trap?"

The connotative meaning behind that sentence upset both Youko and Shuichi, though Criss didn't seem to realize anything. Stephings and she high-fived each other as Kurama slipped out of the room. He headed straight for his dorm room, where he hoped to meet his new roomie. He entered the room to see a boy with smooth, dark skin, tightly braided shoulder length hair, and a grin that could stretch from here to Hong Kong, China.

"Hey, man, what's happenin'?" said the boy. "You Shuichi, right? I'm Jason Dogg, but you can call me JD. I saw your little action goin' down in da sanctuary. Pretty hot stuff, huh?"

Is he speaking some foreign language?

Kurama barely understood half of what he said. "I'm sorry, could you repeat that, in English? I'm from Japan, you see, and I'm still not quite understanding some vernacular dialects…"

"Yeah, sure, dude. Sorry about that. Yo, listen, that girl that was up on the stage, though? She was da bomb, man. Cute chick, with a little bit of fire n' ice of her own, ya know?"

Kurama smiled. "Yes, she lives in the room above us. There's a hole in the ceiling. She said we won't say anything to maintenance about it as long as we both knock before we move the board she placed over it."

"Cool, cool. Hey, you left me the top bunk! I like you, man, you're cool. Hey, listen, here's what we can do with the furniture…"

JD and Kurama spent most of the rest of the afternoon moving the beds, dressers, and desks around the room until they finally got it the way they wanted it. The beds were up against the back wall, though far enough away for the closet doors to swing open freely. Kurama's dresser was right beside the bed, while JD's was across from it on the other wall. The two desks formed a sort of right angle to the door so that they could use the back of them as cork boards.

At about two in the afternoon, when Kurama and JD were helping each other unpack and "decorate", a knock came from the board overhead.

"You can move it, Criss," Kurama called. The board moved and Criss's head came through it again. "Who's you're roommate?"

"Princess Juniper, aka Jun," Criss said. She looked at JD and smirked. "Oh, this is going to be fun. How's it going, you?"

"A'ight," JD answered. "I'm Jason Dogg, but you can call me JD. You are?"

"Criss Nallen. Call me Criss. My roomie ran off after she threw her stuff on the top bunk. She came back with electrical tape and divided the room with it. She says I'm in charge of the stuff nearer the door. Pretty organized, except one thing."

"What's that?" Kurama asked.

"The tape is in the far right hand side of the room, behind the bunk beds. There's nothing on the other side."

JD burst into riotous laughter. "Aww, come on, she can't be serious!"

"Does it look like I'm laughing? I'm gonna ask for a roomie switch…This is ridiculous."

"Give it time first," Kurama said. "Maybe it will work out."

Criss sighed. "All right, if you say so. I'll give her a month. If nothing changes, I'm switching roomies. So, got your class schedule yet? It should be coming in the shoots."

"The what?" Kurama blinked.

"Shoots. Those tubes beside your closet. They're mail tubes. That's how you get your mail and stuff, unless it's too big to fit. Should be in there."

Sure enough, right beside the closet were a pair of glass tubes. Inside of which was a plastic capsule each, both containing a single sheet of paper.

"Just send 'em back if they're empty, there's a button on the side."

JD and Kurama retrieved the papers.

"I don't think we'd be able to do anything without you, baby," JD said, pouring over his list. "I've got…Environmental Biology, Cultural Anthropology, Honors College Writing, Introduction to Education…and a buncha others. Jeez, seven classes."

"I got eight, count yourself lucky. Though, I don't have a four-credit class this semester. I'm not taking E. Bio until next semester. I've got Intro to Bio this semester. Need it. What're you majoring in?"

"Education."

"Ah…like high school?"

"Yeah. English. I want to teach high school English."

"That's cool. I'm looking into something with art and biology."

Kurama saw them both looking at him. "Botany and art."

"Botany?" JD cocked a brow at him. "Flowers and junk?"

"Flowers are only a part of a plant," Kurama said. "There are many others. I want to study exotic plants. The Corpse flower is a very interesting part of what I want to study."

"Corpse flower? I saw one of those on the Internet. Watched it bloom. It only does that like, once in every eight or ten years and it stays that way a max of forty-eight hours. I wish I could have smelled it. Terrible smelling things, Corpse flowers. Well, I gotta jam. See ya, boys!"

She vanished through the hole and replaced the board. They heard a strange scraping noise before it was silent again. Every once in a while, they'd hear her footfalls.

Criss Nallen carefully covered the hole with the board, followed by a heavy red rug. It seemed to be something she and Jun shared in common. A love of the color red. She just hoped that was enough to make Jun leave the rug alone. For some reason, she didn't think it was right for Jun to stick her head into Kurama's room. She got the feeling that Jun would seduce Kurama if she had the chance. Jun seemed to her to be a gold digger. The kind of woman who sees something precious, snaps it up, spends it, and throws it away.

She didn't want Kurama to be hurt because he was used and thrown away.

Jun returned a few moments after she covered the hole and her eyes lit up at the sight of the carpet.

"Ooh, what a pretty color. It looks great there. Are you sure you're not majoring in interior design? This room is great." Jun swayed over onto a couch that Criss had found somewhere, also red. "So, tell me something about yourself. I mean, you are, like, my roomie and all."

"Sure…I guess." Criss sat next to the girl, feeling a little weird. "I'm an artist. I've got a small problem with remembering stuff..."

"Like, what kind of things?"

"Usually little things, like names or what I had to eat for breakfast…But sometimes, I forget entire spans of time. Sometimes a few hours or minutes, others a whole year. I just don't recall anything."

"That's terrible! I mean, I could think of a few things I'd rather forget, like half the guys I've slept with, but to forget stuff you don't want to?"

Half the guys she's slept with? Criss thought. What's that supposed to mean?

"Yeah…but, I'm cool with it. I'm good. So, what about you? What's your major, anyway?"

"Fashion," Jun said. "I design clothes and stuff. I need to learn how to draw before I can go back home, though… It's tough. I still model on the side, for cash and stuff."

"I believe that, you're gorgeous," Criss said. "I'd never be able to do that kind of thing. I am terrified of cameras."

"That's too bad, it's good money. What are you majoring in anyway?"

"Double major. Biology and art. I want to draw animals."

"For mags and stuff? Get out, that's so cool!"

"It is?"

"Yeah, I mean, come on. Animals are just as cool as people are. What're your favorites?"

"Well…I like wolves and tigers and foxes, but my favorite by far is the Arctic Fox. They're completely white, like the snow. Beautiful creatures…"

"I think we're going to be good friends, Criss. I was so wrong about you."

"What do you mean?"

"It's nothing, don't worry about it."

Hmm…I thought a lot about Jun's character, almost as much as I did Criss's. JD was also a bit…odd. Jason Dogg. I got the idea from Snoop Dogg and Jason, a guy I had a crush on when I was in high school. No one ever figured that one out. They all thought I had a crush on my English teacher…Ri-i-ight. I'll let them think anything they want if it keeps them from guessing the truth.

Thing is, Jason committed suicide shortly after graduation. I have very, very, very bad experience with suicide.

Sillylittlenothing: Of course there's gonna be fun. There always is, with me. I'm almost done with this one, and I'm halfway done with the sequel to HMIH. Then, I've got ANOTHER fic halfway done called "Roadside". Aren't I preciously evil?