Chapter 03: "Girls Just Wanna Have Ghost-Free Apartments"

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By the time Kuwabara arrived at Yusuke's apartment, everybody had already left—but they were nice enough to leave a note telling him where they'd gone, at least. Botan's familiar bubbly penmanship, written in an iridescent ink that seemed to emit a faint light, greeted him when he snatched the note off the door and skimmed its contents.

"Dear Kuwabara," the note read. "By the time you get this, we will have left to take our new friend to their apartment. Please meet us there as promptly as you can."

Beneath this he found an address and comprehensives directions to his friends' destination. Seemed like a risky thing to write on a public note so soon after an attempted kidnapping (or at least that was his opinion), but beneath the directions, Botan had penned a postscript.

"PS: Only you, Kuwabara, can read this message thanks to a lovely little new gadget from Spirit World—the Invisible Ink Pen, which renders messages invisible to all but the intended recipient! Our R&D department has truly outdone themselves, if I do say so myself."

Kuwabara made a mental note to ask for an Invisible Ink Pen for Christmas before dashing away into the night.

The apartment wasn't far from Yusuke's place, which was nice. He was only a little winded when he arrived outside the specified dwelling, and Kurama opened the door only a few seconds after he rapped his knuckles on it. Before he could even say hello, however, Kuwabara was hit in the face with a wall of sweet but cloying incense, and his eyes snagged on a crystal ball glittering on a low table in the middle of the living room. Tapestries covered the walls and pillows covered the floor, and it was hard to focus on anything but the horribly strange décor as Kurama ushered him inside. Kuwabara walked in with his mouth open, taking in the sheer number of divination tools (not to mention the tacky-ass fortune telling price list on the back of the door) in horrified awe. The expression changed to one of mild confusion when he saw the two suitcases sitting next to the front door, of course. They were modern pieces of luggage, completely out of place next to all the kitschy crap.

Yusuke lounged on the floor near the crystal ball. He gave Kuwabara a nod, but it wasn't until Kurama cleared his throat that Kuwabara actually had the presence of mind to greet his friends.

"Uh. Hey," he said, fidgeting. "So where is she, anyway?"

Kurama nodded toward a door, one Kuwabara had to assume was a bedroom based on his next statement: "In her room, packing."

"You mean she's not done?" he said, eyes on the suitcases again—but on second thought, Shizuru always packed a lot, and that wasn't the weirdest thing afoot just then. "Why is she packing, though? And where are Keiko and Botan?"

Kurama smiled. "Fortunately for efficiency, the answers to your questions are one and the same. They're making arrangements to bring Yamato-san to Genkai's temple. Keiko is already spending the next week there to coordinate wedding details, after all, and Yusuke was set to join her in only a few days."

"Figured we could just bring Yamato, too," Yusuke said, cracking a grin. "What's one more guest when we're bringing, like, five hundred people there soon, anyway?"

"500?" Kurama's brows lifted, lips curling in a smile. "I have it on good authority that your guest list is only 100 names long." He turned to Kuwabara as Yusuke grumbled something about Kurama and Keiko being entirely too good of friends for his tastes. "Kuwabara, you and I were going to join them at the temple a few days before the wedding, originally, but I am electing to travel with them tomorrow. Safety in numbers, as it were."

"Count me in," Kuwabara said at once. "I'm on spring break, anyway. Little R&R at the temple is just what I need."

And Yukina would be joining them soon, too, to help Keiko. Seeing her was another thing he needed, though he knew Yusuke would just make fun of him if he said that in his outside-the-head voice.

Kurama only smiled, however. "Your optimism never fails to lift the energy of the room, Kuwabara. Thank you for your help."

"Sure thing." He shoved his hands in his pockets with a scowl. "Any word from the shrimp?"

"Botan is attempting to contact him as we speak. We'll know soon enough if he'll be making an appearance."

AKA, Hiei was still dicking around in Demon World. Good to know.

"And how's Yamada feel about all this?" Kuwabara said.

Kurama's cheek twitched. "Yamato."

"She's fine with it," Yusuke cut in. "Eager, even, which was weird."

"She said that under these 'very demonic circumstances,' she'll take whatever protection we can give," Kurama added with a tiny, almost secretive smile—one Kuwabara wasn't sure he understood.

So he just said, "Yamato sounds smart to me."

Kurama's cheek twitched again. "Indeed." He turned. "Yusuke, we should call Keiko and—"

As they started to talk travel arrangements, Kuwabara's attention drifted once more around the apartment, jumping from crystal ball to an omikuji cabinet to the tapestries all over the walls. No telling what the color of the paint underneath might be. Eventually he found himself looking at the door to the mysterious Yamato's bedroom; a thump and a curse drifted from beyond it soon afterward, and he took it as a sign. He'd heard a lot about her from Yusuke on the phone, but it was about time he introduced himself to her, right? He'd be spending a week with her, after all—and it sounded like she could use a hand, too.

Yeah. He'd go in, help her out, and they'd be buddies in no time! Foolproof plan, Kuwabara; you're a genius.

Humming to himself, he strode over to the door and give it a quick knock (it was only polite!) before grasping the knob. A cheerful greeting poised on his lips, he walked into the room, whereupon he spotted Yamato at once. She was standing with her back to him on the far side of the tiny bedroom, kneeling to pull clothes out of a dresser. As soon as he passed the threshold, she bolted to her feet and spun to face him—but she didn't spin fast enough for him not to notice her hair.

Or lack thereof, to be more precise.

Not that she was bald. Not entirely, anyway. She had a kinda-sorta-long mop of hair on the top of her head, but the sides and back were super short, and a few irregular spots had no hair on them at all. Some spots were the size of a small coin; others were a few inches across, with jagged edges like baldness-amoebas creeping over her scalp. They hadn't been shaved, as far as he could tell. They were just patchy and thin, spotty and strange and unexpected.

So of course, the first words out of his mouth were, "What's wrong with your head!?"

And at once a furious Yamato screeched back, "What's wrong with your mouth!?"

Feet pounded the floor outside; Yusuke and Kurama were there in seconds. This was too fast for Yamato, who probably had no idea humans could move at that speed; Kuwabara could only assume as much given the yelp of shock that came tumbling from her lips when they appeared, seemingly from out of nowhere, at Kuwabara's side. She dove for her dresser a moment after they arrived, scrambling to tug a ragged blue beanie over her head, hiding its weird patchy parts from view.

That's about the time Kuwabara noticed the wigs.

They filled a bookcase. Each sat on its own foam head, and they filled an entire bookcase that stood beside the bed across the room. Probably 20 or so wigs in all, in all styles and colors (natural and unnatural alike), each one carefully brushed and combed and stored in a way that he had a feeling would make even Shizuru's picky ass proud. A duffle bag sat open on the bed nearby, a few foam heads and accompanying wigs spilling out of it onto the white comforter in a technicolor swirl.

The bedroom was minimalist, he realized with a start. All greys and whites with not a single decoration beyond the wigs, the polar opposite of the kitsch-clutter outside. But that hardly mattered because Yamato had stood up again and stalked forward, glaring at him through eyes the temperature of arctic steel.

"Don't you know to knock when you go inside somebody's bedroom!?" she spat. "What's wrong with you!?"

"Uh—"

"Don't answer that. I don't even wanna know. And who the hell are you, anyway?" She spun toward Kurama and Yusuke. "Who the hell is he?"

"Yamato." Kurama reached for her arm, though she jerked away before he could touch it. As he withdrew his hand, he murmured, "It's all right. This is Kuwabara, the friend we told you about."

"I'm so sorry," Kuwabara burst out. "I didn't mean to—to barge in—I just—"

He waved at her, at the room, at the wigs, at the open door, and the expression on his blocky face was a hangdog as it gets. That wasn't a calculated look on his part (he really was very sincerely sorry that he'd spoken without thinking, because obviously what he'd said was offensive), but it seemed to do the trick. Yamato deflated, hand resting atop her beanie as she sighed.

"It's all right," she said, eyes on the floor. Red splotches had gathered in her cheeks. "Whatever."

Yusuke, who was busy staring at the contents of the duffle bag with his mouth open, appeared not to have heard their exchange and said, "How many wigs do you even own?"

And Yamato was bristling again, gritting a strangled "Lots!" from between her teeth.

"May I ask why you've amassed this collection?" Kurama said.

His smile was too perfect, too easy to be real, and Kuwabara suspected that he was probably playing dumb to make Yamato think they hadn't seen her head. Which they had. And Yamato appeared to recognize what Kurama was up to, because she replied with snark unabundant.

"Fear of commitment, mostly," she said without a single drop of earnestness. "My therapist says it's a problem."

Yusuke gave a snort at that, but Kurama did not. He just stared at her, a long and steady stare that eventually got Yamato's defiant smirk to fade somewhat. Kurama was looking at her without irony, and to Kuwabara's surprise, Yamato heaved a sigh.

"I have alopecia," she admitted.

"What's that?" Yusuke said.

"It's a skin condition," said Kuwabara.

Everyone looked at him. Yamato in particular appeared shocked, dark eyes wide underneath the low edge of her knit beanie. Kuwabara shuffled in place and jammed his hands deep into the pockets of his coat. Never had been one for the center of attention, especially in a scenario like this. He'd already offended Yamato enough.

"My sister's a beautician," he said when she continued to stare at him. "She's told me about it."

Something in her eyes relaxed a little. "Oh. Well, that explains it." When she crossed her arms over her chest, it made it look like she was in need of a shield, or maybe a bullet-proof vest. "Basically my hair falls out when I'm stressed." Her chin lifted. "And I get the feeling I'm gonna lose what little I've got left if you don't scram and let me pack in peace!"

At once, Kuwabara turned to leave the room, because the feeling of cold distaste radiating from Yamato made his skin crawl so badly, he could've sworn he was experiencing the Tickle Feeling.

A moment later he realized he wasn't mistaken at all, and he froze quite still in place.

"That explains the head scarf from before," Kurama was saying as Kuwabara stood motionless in the doorway. "I was wondering why you refused to…" But Kurama saw the look of embarrassment on Yamato's face and shut the hell up, quick (a fact Kuwabara noted rather distantly, because he was a bit preoccupied just then). Kurama coughed into his fist and said, "Apologies. We'll let you pack."

Yamato heaved a relieved sigh and turned away. When she moved back toward her bed, the source of the Tickle Feeling stayed put, not moving with her at all. The space was tiny, yeah, but Kuwabara's senses were honed enough to know that wherever the feeling was coming from, it wasn't her.

In fact, if he had to pinpoint its location, he'd swear it was coming from her rack of wigs against the wall.

"Yamato," Kurama was saying in a weirdly gentle tone of voice. "Perhaps this is too personal of a question, so forgive my intrusion, but are you under a great deal of stress?"

"I'm a month out from my master's dissertation hearing," she shot back in a voice far less temperate. "What do you think?"

"Asked and answered." Kurama chuckled. "Well. Let's give her space, Yusuke, Kuwabara—Kuwabara?"

At last he'd noticed Kuwabara's frozen stance and gaunt face. Kurama approached with a rustle of feet on carpet and placed a hand on Kuwabara's elbow. Kuwabara barely felt it, just as he'd barely heard the preceding conversation. He was too fixated on the chill running up his spine to want to pay attention. He only snapped out of his trance when Kurama gave his arm the smallest of squeezes, murmuring for Kuwabara to tell his what was wrong. At his request, Kuwabara swallowed and lifted a finger, pointing vaguely into the room.

"So… you all realize this room is totally haunted, right?" he said.

A long silence followed. Kurama and Yusuke exchanged a glance. Yamato paled, purple wig in her hand falling to the bed with a fibrous whisper. Kuwabara ignored them. He ignored them so he could walk to the room's not-so-distant middle and stand in it, turning in place to try and identify the source of the chill running cold fingers up and down his nape. It stayed steady near the wigs, and it tasted ancient. Ancient like the bones of a mountain or the dust from a long-forgotten tomb. Like the rings of a tree too vast to ever chop down and behold with human eyes, spiraling core hidden in darkness and mired flowing sap.

"Haunted?" Yusuke said, shoulders hunching as he warily eyed the room. "You serious?"

"Haunted?" Yamato joined in, but her face had reddened atop its pallor. "Haunted? First demons and now ghosts? What the fuck is happening? But oh, wait, it doesn't matter, because I already blame all of you." She leveled a finger at Yusuke. "Seriously, your fiancée shows up in my damn house and now—"

They started bickering. Kuwabara ignored them. So did Kurama, mostly so he could sidle up to Kuwabara and ask in a low voice, "You're certain?"

"Am I ever wrong about this stuff?"

"Point taken."

"—the heck could that be Keiko's fault!?" Yusuke was saying.

"I'm saying that none of this was happening until she showed up!" said Yamato.

"Hey," said Kuwabara, pleadingly. "Can you give me a minute, huh?"

To her credit, Yamato shut up pretty fast, but she still stared at them all with an expression of disbelief mixed with bubbling ire. Kuwabara did his best not to pay her any attention. He wandered in silence through the room, trailing his fingertips over the bed, the small desk on the corner, and the dresser by the bathroom door. None of them made the Tickle Feeling increase, but the minute he got near the bookcase full of wigs on foam display heads, a shiver skated up his back. That feeling he'd gotten before—the one about mountains' bones and sealed crypts—intensified. The more intense it got, the more he was able to tell about it, and by the time he settled in front of the wig stand, he felt it strongly enough to make out some specifics.

The ghost didn't put off a bad feeling. Or at least it wasn't specifically malevolent. He didn't get the sense that the apparition (whatever, whoever, wherever it was) wanted to hurt anyone, Yamato and himself and all his friends included. It felt more like it was… observing. Watching. Taking notes. Like a tiger behind thick glass, looking out at the world with patience and a sense of calm composure too alien for Kuwabara to truly understand.

Another chill skated up his spine.

Bracing himself, Kuwabara pressed a single reluctant fingertip to the edge of the wooden bookcase—but he felt nothing. He traced all the shelves and even the edges of the wigs themselves, and none of them sparked any sort of reaction in his sixth sense. It wasn't until he reached the bottom of the bookcase that he realized why.

The bookcase was sitting on top of something. A little platform about knee-height, covered in a purple cloth. And as soon as he touched the cloth, electricity sparked against his skin.

He got to work immediately, calling over Yusuke to help him move the bookcase to the side without upsetting all of Yamato's many wigs. Underneath the purple cloth he found an old wooden trunk bound with leather straps and leather buckles. Touching it resulted in an even bigger crash of static, one that set a humming in his teeth and placed an ache at the base of his spine.

"So… what're we looking at?" Yusuke asked, staring in consternation at the trunk when Kuwabara didn't say anything.

Yamato swallowed. "It—it belonged to my aunt."

"What's in it?"

She swallowed again. "Just some old things of hers."

"Care to elaborate?" Kurama said.

"Uh… it's hard to explain." She cupped the back of her neck and slipped her other hand into the crook of her elbow. "You might just need to see it."

She was right. If she'd outright told him that the trunk contained five antique Ouija boards, a few curved daggers, beeswax candles, and tons of crystals and dried herbs, Kuwabara probably would've thought she was making a bad joke or something. It was a trunk full of occult paraphernalia, as instantly recognizable as the way the Tickle Feeling rose to a crescendo when he gingerly picked through the jumble, counting the cloths inscribed with runes and crescent moons (four), the jars of unknown powders (six) and a set of jade chopsticks in a glass case (just one, but these gave him the creeps more than even the Ouija boards). The entire lot of it emanated power in warm pulses, ancient and distinct but still subtle—like the hum of a far-off storm buzzing in your teeth.

He wondered what would happen when the thunder rolled.

"Well, that answers that." Yusuke crossed his arms and nodded once, sharply. "What's haunted are the Ouija boards. Definitely, definitely the Ouija boards."

"I'm not so sure," Kuwabara said, eyes locked on the jade chopsticks—but when he moved to touch them, they didn't react to his presence.

It was the small wooden box beneath them that popped like a bottle rocket against his skin.

He didn't particularly want to touch the box, but he did so anyway, carefully lifting it free of the trunk and placing it on the bed. The box was simple and unadorned, held shut by a braided red cord tied in a neat knot. He started to tug the cord away, but the Tickle Feeling rose to a fever pitch when his fingers brushed against its cool crimson length.

"Yamato…" He took a deep breath. "Can you open this?"

From her spot in the room's corner (to which she'd retreated when he started moving things around inside the trunk), she startled and yelped, "Me? Why me?"

Kuwabara started to answer her, but he stopped. He eyed the box, and then he eyed her over, too. Yamato looked normal enough. She had a tan and dark eyes and was pretty (though never as pretty as Yukina; no one was as pretty as Yukina) and in every way ordinary. She wasn't making his Tickle Feeling go off at all.

But when he looked at her, that ancient something that lived in the box on the bed (because that's exactly where it was coming from, Kuwabara now knew) gave a quiet, happy rumble.

"Not sure." He tried to look apologetic. "It just needs to be you. That's all."

Yamato eyed him as expressionlessly as a shark when she said, "That's creepy and I don't like it."

Kurama smothered a laugh behind his hand as Yusuke asked, "Any idea what's inside?"

"I dunno. Like an old hairbrush or something? It's been forever since I looked in that trunk." She shot Kuwabara a pout that would've been comical under other circumstances. "Can't you do it?"

"No." The word came out sharper than he'd intended. More softly he repeated, "No. It needs to be you."

"It's really creepy the way you keep saying that."

"I'm sorry.

He meant that, too. He was sorry about all of this, and to prove it, he gave Yamato a smile of sympathy. For a minute she just looked at him, but soon her head bowed, and she gave a little sigh.

"Well. At least you're sweet about it." She held out a hand, one that shook only the smallest bit. "Give it here."

He did, and the ancient feeling changed a little, shifting from detached and observant to almost warm. That warmth grew as she unknotted the cord and set it aside to lift the box's lid. For a second she hesitated, peering into the box with apprehension writ in every line of her furrowed brow—but then her face relaxed.

"Not a hairbrush," she muttered. "Just a mirror, is all."

And with that, she lifted it into view.

The Tickle Feeling turned into a tidal wave when his eyes connected with the mirror's jade handle and polished brash disc, one it possessed in lieu of glass. Probably because glass (reflective, silver-backed glass, anyway) hadn't been around when the mirror was made. It was old as hell, brass disc cupped in a carved lotus blossom in a style he'd only see in museums and textbooks about Japanese history. Definitely an antique if he'd ever seen one, though he had no idea what time period it could've come from. Maybe he should've paid more attention to history class…

He didn't need history class to know the spirit was definitely inside the mirror, though. He knew it was the source of the tang of ancient power he'd been sensing all night the second the overhead light reflected like a sun in the mirror's polished surface. And apparently Kurama could too, because his face immediately pinched.

"Put it down, Yamato," he intoned. When she obeyed, blotting her hand on her jeans afterward, Kurama said, "Kuwabara, can you draw the spirit out?"

"I can try," Kuwabara said.

He promised to try, rather than to succeed, very much on purpose. Kuwabara wasn't a good exorcist. He had tried a few times to oust angry or vengeful spirits from their nests, but he'd never been too good at it. Too busy fighting to learn many other uses for spirit power. Still, despite his past fuckups and failures, he knew the basics of a standard exorcism, and if his friends asked it of him, he'd try to put that knowledge to good use. A spirit was possessing this mirror, and if forced out of the object, it would have to flee, or at least appear so he could squash it with his power. Simple enough logic, probably? He hoped so, and got to work.

Spiritual energy was kind of like water, in a way: impossible to compress. Two kinds of energy couldn't compress into the same space or occupy the same space; that was almost scientific, when you got down to it. That's why he picked up the mirror (which felt impossibly cold in his hand) and began to channel his power into it, just like he'd channeled his power into scraps of wood back when he first started learning to wield the Spirit Sword. The goal was to fill the mirror up and force the ghost out, to take up all the space and make the ghost flee. Evict it with a new tenant, basically. His plan appeared to be working when he soon felt a node of energy within the mirror, one that reeked of that same ancient power he'd sensed before. It was distant, though, as if miles away instead of inches away down the mirror's length, so he swiftly sent his energy after it, giving chase through the mirror's depths like a dog after a fleeing fox.

But the mirror was surprisingly big, at least on the inside. He'd fed a good bit of his energy into it by the time he realized he'd gotten no closer to the ghost's primeval power at all. It was like the mirror was an ocean instead of a pond, and he only had enough power to fill a pond, or maybe a good-sized lake if he was being generous. There was no end to the places the ghost could flee, which meant Kuwabara's exorcism tactic wasn't going to work.

At that realization, he heard a chuckle. It came from far away, musical and soft, and faded just as quickly as it had appeared—but he'd heard it, and at its sound, he knew his attempts were futile. In fact, something told him that the mirror's seemingly endless depths were the work of the ghost itself; its satisfied laughter said a lot on that subject. And pulling a trick like that meant this ghost was strong. Or maybe it was just too subtle, or at least evasive. He hadn't gotten close to it, but he suspected that trying to grasp it would be like trying to grasp an oiled fish underwater with your bare hands.

At that thought, the ghost chuckled again.

Kuwabara withdrew his power and heaved a heavy sigh.

"Sorry. It's in there deep. We'll need Genkai, I'm guessing." He put the mirror back in its box, trying to be gentle (no sense getting on the ghost's bad side, right?). "Wonder how old it is."

"The mirror itself is from the late Heian period of Japanese history." Leave it to Kurama to know his antiques, right? Despite sounding authoritative on the subject, he added, "But the spirit could be older or younger than that, still."

Yamato advanced out of her corner, looking at the mirror with renewed interest. "Think it's worth some money?"

"To the right collector? Undoubtedly."

"Huh. Maybe our little adventure has a silver lining." She started grinning, a look that lit up her face like a lantern on a cold night. "Bet selling this would cover a nice chunk of my tuition!"

A chill ran up Kuwabara's spine; he blurted, "You might not wanna say that again."

One of Yamato's brows rose high.

Kuwabara cupped his hands around his mouth to whisper, "The ghost doesn't like hearing you say that!"

"Well it's been living here rent-free for years, so I don't particularly care what it wants," she retorted. Glaring at the mirror, she said, "First demons, and now this. A ghost? You gotta be shitting me!" She hefted her leg up and gave the box and annoyed kick with her heel. "What the hell was my aunt doing with this thing, anyway?"

Kurama caught her eye and said, "Your aunt—you mentioned her before."

"Oh. Yeah." Yamato lowered her leg bit by bit, staring through narrowed eyes at the floor. "She died and I inherited all her stupid divination crap."

"You mean all the stuff outside?" Yusuke said, staring at the Ouija boards with newfound horror. "And in the box?"

"Every last scrap," Yamato said. "Didn't have to spend a dime to get my fortune telling business off the ground. This was her apartment, too. It's paid off for the next decade." A bitter smile graced her mouth. "Only reason I can afford to go to school."

No one said a word as Yamato's bitter expression deepened into sadness. She dug at the carpet with her toe, arms crossed so she could hold herself, eyes cast down at the mirror in its box. A cloud hung over her head, one Kuwabara felt in his gut rather than saw with his eyes. All at once and out of nowhere, he felt sorry for her. Her baggage about her aunt was obvious, even if he didn't know the specifics of it—but it felt far too awkward and he knew her far too little to offer condolences or sympathy. Something told him Yamato wouldn't appreciate it overmuch, anyway.

Still, he wasn't the kind of person to see someone suffer and say nothing. He stepped forward with a grin, and he made sure to keep smiling when Yamato at last looked up at him.

"We'll get to the bottom of this," he said, pointing a thumb at his chest. "You can trust us, OK? Everything's gonna be fine, you'll see."

"Yeah. We're used to stuff like this." Even though he kept shooting cagey glances the Ouija boards, Yusuke still walked a few steps toward her and smiled. "You're in good hands, so cheer up, OK?"

She didn't reply right away, and when she did, her voice came out thick.

"Thanks." She shut the box with the clap of wood on wood, shaking her head until she could smile again. "So now what?"

Kurama stepped forward. "We'll take the mirror with us in the morning. A certain friend of our will no doubt be able to help discern its origin. In the meantime, we—"

Someone knocked on the apartment's front door.

Yamato grabbed the person nearest to her, which happened to be Kurama, who gave a grunt of surprise at the sudden contact (he wasn't a touchy-feely guy even with his friends, let alone strange women in beanies). She grasped his arms with both hands and just about hid herself behind him, staring past at her bedroom door with panic blazing furnace-fire in her dark eyes. Yusuke and Kuwabara exchanged a nod and stalked out of the bedroom, heading for the front of the flat and the person still knocking on the door. Kurama and Yamato followed more slowly after, because Yamato appeared to be having trouble moving and Kurama was polite enough to shuffle along at her pace instead of, y'know, rushing and stuff.

Not that his courtesy mattered much when the person at the door started calling Yamato's given name.

"Rei-chan? Rei-chan, are you there?" they called in a deep, booming voice. "Rei-chan, it's me! Let me in!"

Yamato Rei(-chan) gasped at the sound of their voice and dropped Kurama's arm like it was a hot poker. Before Kuwabara could react, she had flung herself across the living room and wrenched the door wide open, greeting the hulking figure looming there with a shriek.

"Oh my god, Takeshi!" she said, grabbing his wrist to tug him inside. "What are you doing here?"

"I thought I heard yelling earlier, and a few minutes ago I thought I heard you yelling again," the man said. "Is everything—?"

To Kuwabara, Kurama was little more than a scarlet blur as he streaked forward and shoved Yamato away from the burly man with the gigantic ram horns curling out of his temples. She yelped as she fell on her ass on the floor, and the yelp turned into a scream when Kurama extended a hand and shot a mass of writhing vines from his sleeve at the man (who was, comically, still talking and totally not fast enough to recognize that he was about to get his ass beat). The man went down at once, shape of his body almost lost under the thrashing foliage Kurama was still pumping out.

Eloquently, Yamato scrambled to her feet and screamed, "The FUCK!?"

Kurama didn't move. Vines continued to pour from his sleeve, completely enveloping the horned man on the floor in their twitching bulk. The man struggled and bellowed beneath them, but he wasn't able to break free even the smallest bit. For what must've been the thousandth time in his life, Kuwabara reminded himself not to piss off Kurama. Yamato, however, had not yet learned this lesson, and she threw herself at Kurama without a care.

"What the hell are you doing!?" she shrieked, latching onto his sleeve, but Kurama didn't flinch or move at all. "Dude, what the fuck are you doing to Takeshi!?"

Kurama's eyes slid to her sidelong. "You know this demon?"

"Demon?" She blinked a few times before looking absolutely furious. "Takeshi's my neighbor! He's not a—wait." She looked at Takeshi and back up at Kurama again. "Horns. Right. He's got horns. But who cares about that right now!?" Yamato shook Kurama's arm, not noticing that he wasn't budging even a little bit. "Let him go! Let him—wait, what the hell, vines!?" She seemed to have noticed Kurama's powers for the first time, leaping away from him with another frightened shriek. "What the fuck!? Are you doing that!? OH MY GOD—!"

It was kind of terrible to watch, seeing Yamato absorb so much so quickly. Her friend Takeshi was a demon, Kurama was attacking him with plants, Kurama could freaking control plants—she had to process each of these things one after another, and Kuwabara wasn't sure she was quite finished by the time she threw herself to the floor at Takeshi's side and started yanking at the vines still swarming his bucking body. Yamato babbled while she did it, too, about how Kurama owed her an explanation but how there also wasn't time for that, because Takeshi needed help and if Kurama did lay the hell of right now, she'd shave his stupid, obviously-dyed red hair until he was even balder than she was.

Kuwabara darted to Kurama's side when he heard that particular threat. Fearing what Yamato might endure if she made that threat again (and fearing what would happen if, heaven forbid, she made good on it), he put a hand on his friend's shoulder and said, "C'mon, man! Let him go!"

Kurama bared his teeth. "Kuwabara, he's—"

"I know he's a demon, but look! Yamato's freaking out—they're friends!"

Kurama reacted a bit more slowly to that statement than Kuwabara would've liked (perhaps he was still upset about the hair comment), but he at least listened. His arm lowered, and the vines trailing from his sleeve began to retract back into it, creeping back and off of Takeshi's body inch by reluctant inch. It helped that Yamato was tearing the vines away by the handful, and when enough of them retreated, she helped Takeshi sit up while shooting a grateful look at Kuwabara (along with a dirty one at Kurama, and another dirty one at Yusuke, who had basically just stood back and watched everything go down; he was too cool to get involved, or something; Kuwabara wasn't sure).

Takeshi was breathing hard (probably had gotten constricted pretty badly) by the time he emerged from the vines and Kuwabara could get a good look at him. Apart from his enormous ram horns, he looked like a pretty average (albeit tall, broad and muscular) dude. He had blocky features and thick lips and narrow eyes, with a buzz-cut hairstyle and five o'clock shadow, and he wore a pair of striped pajamas and slippers. Not all that intimidating, apart from the horns. Seeing this, Kurama looked a little sheepish, dipping a low bow and murmuring an apology to which Takeshi gave an awkward, seated bow in response.

Yamato just glared, and when Kurama tried to speak, she pointedly turned her face away and scowled.

"I'm so sorry, Takeshi. Tonight's been crazy and you got caught in the middle," she said. "But first thing's first—you're a demon?"

"Uh. Yeah." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I am."

Yamato nodded, absorbing this… and then she socked him on the arm with a wordless growl.

"What was that for!?" Takeshi said, clutching the spot she'd punched.

"Why didn't you tell me!?"

"I figured you knew!" He pointed at his head. "You never once questioned the horns!"

"Harajuku, man! I hang out all the time in Harajuku!"

"You thought I was cosplaying!?"

"That's a more logical assumption than thinking you're a real live literal demon!"

Takeshi looked offended; Yamato looked pissed; Yusuke had started laughing his ass off in the corner, and Kuwabara was trying his hardest not to join in. Yamato's expressions were too exaggerated to not be funny, but Kurama wasn't laughing when he stepped forward and held up a hand to call for silence.

"Pardon me for interrupting, but please," Kurama said. "Who is this man?"

Yamato scrambled up, dragging Takeshi with her. "This is Takeshi, my next door neighbor and frequent client."

"And friend!" Takeshi said.

"Yes, and friend!" She turned her glare in his direction. "Though last time I checked, friends tell friends things about themselves such as the fact that they're demons."

Takeshi's hands flew skyward. "I THOUGHT THAT YOU KNEW!"

"Well, I didn't! When you called yourself a monster, I thought you were being metaphorical, you goober!"

Funny as their banter was, Kuwabara had stopped listening to it. One word she'd spoken had stood out from all the rest, banging around in his head like a kid on a pots-and-pans drum set. He thought about it for a good while, eyes going between Takeshi and Yamato in turns, and soon he cleared his throat and raised his hand to get Yamato's attention.

"Yamato?" he said.

"Yeah?" she said, breaking off from Takeshi for a second. "What's up?"

"So Takeshi is your client?"

"Yeah. What about it?"

"Do… uh… do many of your clients have weird anatomy and whatever?" He put his fingers by his forehead. "Horns and stuff like you described back at Yusuke's place?"

"Oh, sure. Lots of them do." With a grin she waved at the demon standing by her side. "And they were all referred to me by… oh." Recognition dawned like the sun on a bright, clear morning. She turned to Takeshi with jaw dropped, eyes wide when she saw the way he was hanging his head and refusing to look at her. "OH."

"Well, damn," Yusuke said, and when Yamato started yelling at Takeshi all over again, Yusuke's laughter began anew.

Kurama, meanwhile covered his face with his hands.

Kuwabara certainly understood why.

As exciting as their lives were, this was too many revelation for a single evening, even by their standards.

X

First name: Rei. Last name: Yamato. Occupation: Being a dumbass in the face of the supernatural. Traits: Hair loss, a big mouth and attitude for daaaaays. Alopecia is no joke and it's theraputic to write her with this trait, omgggg.

More on her aunt, her BFF Takeshi and the ghost in the mirror next time. THANK YOU EPSILON KRONOS FOR YOUR REVIEWS; I AM NOT WORTHY; I DEDICATE THIS CHAPTER TO YOU.