This maybe my only update for a while now. I'm swamped with school projects and something that isn't exactly pleasant or unpleasant has made it's way back into my life, so as you can tell my life is busy...
Anyway...as always the disclaimer...
Disclaimer: How many times must I say this...I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho.

If you would have told Kuwabara Kazuma that he would have woken up this morning, run into a strange foreign girl and have her living with him and his sister he would have called the person crazy and punch their lights out. He turned his head slightly and looked back at the girl, Ericka, who was following him a small distance away, her eyes on the ground. He turned back around and sighed, shoving his pockets into his hands. The two were headed towards his home, after calling his sister and giving a heads up on the situation. She didn't have too much of a disagreement of letting the girl stay. Teasing him a little and telling him that it was his responsibility to make sure she stayed out of trouble.

'She makes it seem like she's my pet or something.' he thought, slightly disturbed.

His mind wandered to the incident in Keiko's family Noodle House with Yusuke.

"What's with the wide load?" asked Yusuke with a slight smirk as he glanced over at Ericka and then returned his eyes to Keiko.

Kuwabara yelled at Yusuke as he vaguely heard Keiko yell something at the raven haired teen as well.

"You got some nerve insulting a woman like that Urameshi!" he yelled glaring at the boy that had already made him mad earlier.

"I mean, she can't even defend herself against it, since she probably doesn't understand you!"

Yusuke glanced back over at Ericka and a small smirk came to his face.

"So what, she's some foreigner? A stupid one I guess coming to another country and not knowing the language..."

Keiko had enough and told Yusuke off herself and the raven haired young man left.
Kuwabara glared after Yusuke's retreating back, wondering why he was being so cold to the girl. Sure, Yusuke wasn't the most trusting person, but he wasn't that cold to another person unless they showed him a reason to be that way. And as far as Kuwabara knew, Ericka had just sat there quietly and looked at him. He looked over at said girl as Keiko apologized for her fiance's rudeness. He saw how white her knuckles were turning, from the pressure of holding them so tightly. But Ericka made sure not to let it show on her face and said that it was all right.

As Kuwabara mused over that memory he wondered why Ericka hadn't told Yusuke off. She may not have been able to understand what he said but people had a way of knowing when they were being talked about unkindly. And with her knuckles being so white, he had to guess that she was mad. But she just smiled and said it was nothing and lapsed into silence. He was very puzzled about it. Maybe she didn't want to draw attention to herself or seem rude. He sighed and shook his head. It wasn't for him to think about and he was never good at figuring out how woman thought. He stopped as they reached the front of his house. He looked down at Ericka as eyes still remained on the ground.

"This is my house." He said then kicked himself mentally.

He somehow forgot about the language barrier and wished Keiko had come with them. But it was late and Keiko had told him that her parents wouldn't have wanted her to go out this late, so he was forced to take Ericka to his house, alone. But, the girl seemed to get the idea as she nodded and looked up at the house. She opened her mouth but closed it as she stepped forward. Kuwabara looked at her a moment longer before stepping towards the house as well and going to the front door. He dug in his pockets and looked around for his keys, cursing as he still couldn't find them. Why was it that keys seemingly seem to disappear in pockets, no matter how shallow the pockets were?

He heard the door unlock and blinked away the harsh yellow light of the light inside the house. His sister, Shizuru, opened the door, a cigarette between her lips and gave her brother a look.

"As long as it took for you to get home I would have thought you got dragged into some battle with demons again."

Kuwabara waved his hands and looked over his shoulder at Ericka.

"Shh! Be quiet about the whole demon thing okay! We don't need outsiders knowing about that stuff."

Ericka looked pleasantly confused as she looked back and forth between the brother and sister.
Shizuru rolled her eyes and took her cigarette into her hands, taking a puff before letting out the smoke.

"Does it really matter? I thought you told me she couldn't understand Japanese? I find it highly unlikely that she suddenly just happened to learn it and now knows what we're talking about."

Kuwabara let out an embarrassed laugh and scratched the back of his head.

"Oh yeah...guess I forgot about that..."

Shizuru turned away and muttered something about idiot brothers.

"Well, get out of the way and let her come in so we can get her settled in."

Kuwabara turned back to Ericka and showed her into the house. He closed the door and watched as she looked around the entrance with amazement. What was so special about their entrance? He was about to tell her to take her shoes off but he didn't need to, as Ericka took her sneakers off and slipped into the slippers that Shizuru must have put out for her before they got there. She walked with Shizuru into the living room, still carrying that book bag that nearly 'killed' Kuwabara with it's weight. Kuwabara looked at the retreating backs of the girl and his sister and as he took his own shoes off. Well, at least the girl knew about some of the customs. Maybe it wouldn't be as hard as he thought?

Kuwabara entered into the living room to see Shizuru and Ericka sitting on the couch, conversing. It was weird to hear his sister speak in English. He knew that she could, it was more of a conversational English than proper English, but English was English. The older Kuwabara sibling did go to high school after all, and she was training to be a hair stylist. He was sure a hair stylist that could speak more than one language, able to converse with more than one type of people would have more of a chance getting a job than one that couldn't.

He was brought of his thoughts as his sister yelled at him.

"If you're done staring then you can help me set up a room for our guest."

Kuwabara nodded and went to take Ericka's bag. Ericka looked reluctant to let the older boy take her bag and in reality, Kuwabara really didn't want to take the bag, remembering how heavy it was. After getting yelled at for being so slow, Kuwabara took the bag and hefted it up over his shoulder. His shoulder shuddered slightly at the weight and he made his way to the room they were setting up for Ericka.

Kuwabara let the bag drop from his shoulder to the floor, as it made an audible thud. Shizuru looked over from her spot in the room, where she setting up a futon, and looked down at the bag with a puzzled look.

"What does she have in there?" she asked, curious as to what would make that much of a noise.

"Beats me. I'm not looking in the bag." He said as he rolled his shoulders to get the slight discomfort out of his muscles.

He looked around at the room that was slowly turning into a guest room. It had been a spare room that was just there in the house. It was empty and usually servered the purpose of being the place to put random things that took up space in the house. It was clear now, because the house had just gone through a 'Spring Cleaning' and everything in the room was either thrown out or put else where.

"You think she'll be comfortable with sleeping on a futon?" asked Kuwabara.

Futons were actually quiet comfortable if you had the right type of pillow and sheets. He was guessing that she had never slept on any sort mattress that was on the floor.

"I don't know but she'll have to deal with it since it's all we got."

Shizuru stood up and looked down at her handy work. The pillow was place just so, and the sheets and comforter were made up in an almost perfect vision of how a bed should look. Shizuru didn't get to play hostess often and it was a nice change. She looked over at her brother who dragged the girl's bag to the corner of the room, refusing to pick it up again.

"All right Kazuma, I agreed to let her stay here on the promise that you wouldn't let the fact that we have a guest keep you from studying for your college entrance exams..."

He nodded remembering the little 'talk' they had when he asked if she could stay with them. Sometimes, he thought that she wanted him to get into a good collage more than he wanted to...

"Also..."

This caused Kuwabara to look over at his sister. She had that expression on her face again. That expression that was mixed with seriousness, worry for her brother and a bunch of other emotions he couldn't yet describe.

"I feel something about that girl, that's...off. She's human, I can tell that much but there's something about her that isn't right."

"You felt it too?" he said in slight surprise.

"Yeah, just be careful around her Kazuma. She seems nice and all but you still don't know her. You have to be conscious of how you act around her and who you're around with her." She warned.

That was the truth. Ericka seemed fine around normal humans like Keiko, but he didn't know what would happen if she were suddenly around some like Kurama. But, she didn't act weird when Yusuke came in the noodle house. However, Yusuke's personality changed a bit with her there so maybe the hanyou sensed something he didn't?

There were too many possibilities about what was really up with Ericka and his brain wasn't up to figuring them all out, at least not tonight. He just told himself to be extra careful and watch Ericka while still being polite to her.

"Don't worry. I will. I'll keep my eye out for anything out of the ordinary with her."

Shizuru nodded and made her way out the room.

"Good, then let's show Ericka her room and tell her about the etiquette of the household."

Kuwabara sighed and followed his sister, unwillingly back to the living with their guest. Oh how much fun this would be.

And that's the end of this chapter. I'd like to respond to a certain reviewer now:

Celey: Thank you so much for your honest criticism. It's reviews like yours that give me tips on making my stories better. I'm taking into account everything you said I'll try to rework the story a bit. I'm doing so now and it's actually coming out better than before. And I'll try my hardest with the spelling errors and such, you're right, there's no excuse for laziness. I really tried not to make this an insert-fic, I may have been misleading in the first chapter but Ericka truly is an OC, which I'll make more apparent later own. I hope this chapter is more to your liking then the others were and I'll try to get more of the main characters into the spotlight.

And to all my other reviewers thank you so much for your kind words and opinions of my fic. I promise to update as much and as soon as possible and bring you the best of my work that I have to offer. And as always...READ & REVIEW!