Warnings:
Lucky Child
Chapter 32
"Story Might Take a While"
She didn't even let me order something first. Kagome darted from the awning of the café and tangled her fingers in my sweater the minute she spotted me walking up the street. Eager anxiety had her bouncing in place like the cartoon tiger I'd named her after.
"So?" she demanded. "Yusuke, Yusuke, tell me about Yusuke! I want every last detail you've got, dammit, and I know you've got a lot of them squirreled away in that brain of yours!"
I grabbed Kagome's wrists and eased my hands into hers. She stared with apprehensive excitement, jiggling with energy her small body couldn't quite contain. It had been over a month since we'd last seen each other, though, so I suppose that's par for the course.
"You should sit down," I said. "This story might take a while."
Two weeks prior to meeting Kagome at the café, I ran into a fire to save my best friend's life, only for him to save mine, instead. That night I had a dream. As soon as I woke up the morning after the dream in which Yusuke asked me to kiss him, I walked to Atsuko's new place. She wasn't there (of course she wasn't) but Yusuke had been set up in his bed by his nurses. They gave me a key to the place—they knew me well enough by now to trust me with one, even more than they trusted the ne'er-do-well Atsuko—and left soon after. Not much to do for a coma patient, after all.
I waited until the door shut behind them to check out Yusuke.
True to the anime, his face wasn't glowing. Neither were his arms where they lay atop the covers. Part of me wondered if I should go to school and act like I didn't believe the dream, to stick with the anime, but…I didn't have the energy to pretend. I just didn't. Running to him at the last minute like Keiko had, with mere seconds to spare, felt far too risky for my tastes. Frankly, it sounded exhausting and superfluous. Best expedite this process and speed things up a bit, thank you.
I untucked the sheets from the foot of the bed and peered at my best friend's feet.
Golden and glowing like paper lanterns.
Yup.
This was happening.
I sat back on my heels, hands braced atop the mattress.
Even as contented warmth flooded my chest, a cold knot filled my gut like arctic water.
I hadn't expected this so soon after the fire. I mean, I knew he came back shortly after sacrificing the egg to save Keiko, but the next day? Koenma sure did work quickly. Must've fast-tracked this process somehow, or maybe he skipped Spirit World bureaucracy altogether. Special treatment for the potential Spirit Detective didn't seem too outlandish.
But still. I thought I'd have more time to prepare for this—for kissing my best friend.
My best friend, who was fourteen years old.
Who was a child.
What did that make me, then? A forty-year-old cougar? A pedophile? Heaving fucking forbid…
I walked to the head of the bed and ran a hand over Yusuke's forehead. The heart monitor and breathing machine peeped and whistled, keeping his body running even as his spirit ran amok elsewhere. Or maybe his spirit floated close to me right now, in the apartment, observing as I wondered what to do.
"Wondering what to do" sounds like I debated bringing him back to life—which of course wasn't the case. Of course I was going to bring him back. I'd never leave Yusuke dead.
But…
There were a lot of "buts."
The physical act of kissing didn't bother me—not in a broad sense. I'd had to make out with people on stage in my old life when I acted in plays. Kissing someone didn't mean you liked them, and I'd had practice keeping my emotions out of the physical act of kissing. Kissing only held as much emotion as you put into it. A chaste peck on the mouth? I could handle it.
I could handle it when it was other adults, I mean. And so could those other adults. Adults were mature enough (by and large) to recognize a necessary, staged kiss when the saw one.
But Yusuke wasn't an adult. He was a child.
Could he handle it, I wondered?
In the anime, the kiss fundamentally changed Yusuke and Keiko's relationship. If I kissed him, would he imprint on me like an irritable baby duckling? Would he want to begin that will-they-won't-they romantic dance many fans found so engaging? Would I be obligated to date him, even though the thought of dating a teenager (any teenager, not just Yusuke) squicked me out in an absolutely disgusting way?
And if I did kiss him, and he did fall for me, and I did somehow get over my squick long enough to reciprocate his feelings (though of course that would never happen)…did that mean I had to be with him?
But what if my heart wasn't there?
Rejecting him could ruin our friendship. Could I risk that when I'd come to rely on him so much?
"Well, buddy," I murmured to the comatose boy. "You put me in a bit of a pickle, didn't you?"
Right then, right there in that moment, with teenage bodies and teenage brains and Yusuke's immature personality…the thought of being with him romantically didn't sit right. It felt wrong. He was a child. I was an adult. These were the facts, immutable and inconvenient. Give him another decade to mature, and maybe we could talk about dating. Maybe. If I could come to see him as an adult after knowing him since childhood, of course.
Time. I needed time to figure this out.
Too bad time was the one thing Yusuke didn't have.
"Oh god," I muttered. My lips screwed up. "I really have to kiss you, don't I?"
He didn't answer. I put my head in my hands.
This wasn't fair. This wasn't fair at all.
As soon as the thought crossed my mind, my mind was made up. Once Yusuke got to be an adult instead of an unruly kid (in, like, a minimum of a decade), maybe we could revisit the chance of something more than friendship, but as of that specific moment…I couldn't date a child. I couldn't fall in love with a child. I just wasn't capable of that.
I could offer him a kiss: chaste, practical, and necessary. But that was all.
And lucky for me, I didn't have to do it alone.
Said Kagome, "You know, I've had the same thoughts about Inuyasha." Her nose wrinkled. "Well. Sort of."
It was the first time she'd interrupted my story about bringing Yusuke back to life—surprising considering Kagome's chatty nature. I pursed my lips and asked, "What do you mean?"
Kagome sat back in her chair with a frown. "Well, your worries about the age difference don't really apply. Inuyasha even older than my combined ages. So that's not an issue." She met my eyes, anguish showing in the lines of her knit brow. "But do I have to fall in love with him like Kagome did?"
She didn't need to explain. Her eyes said it all: we were doomed to loving whom Keiko and Kagome loved? Did we have a choice? Were we allowed to follow our own hearts, our own destinies?
Because I didn't have answers, I told her: "I wish I knew."
We sat in silence for a time. Eventually she sighed, slumping in her seat like a deflated balloon.
"You know, I never saw the whole anime," she said, "but I think I remember hearing that Kagome and Inuyasha's relationship was part of what destroyed the Jewel. So for the good of everyone, do I have to…?"
The question lingered on the thin, wintry air. I started to speak—though to say what, I'm uncertain—but Kagome shook her head. She shook her head like a dog and slapped her hands flat atop the café table between us. Dark eyes shined bright with irate determination.
"You know what?" she said. "Never mind! I hate thinking about stuff like that! Just not fun, no ma'am." She sat back and waved, shooing the questions away like buzzing flies. "Enough of my belly-aching. Go on. What happened next?"
My lips quirked.
"What happened next is, I found reinforcements."
Kuwabara, at his core, is a somewhat predictable soul—at least insofar as his hobbies go. I leaned my elbow atop an arcade game, coaxed my lips into a lazy smile and said, "Mornin', Kuwabara. Fancy meeting you here."
Caught in the middle of a rally car race, he did at least two double-takes before realizing he knew the person looming over his video game. The big guy yelped like a puppy who'd been stepped on and leapt from his chair. Onscreen, his Porsche 911 Turbo crashed against a wall in a shower of pixelated sparks.
"Jumpin' Jehosephat, Keiko, you scared the bejeezus outta me!" he said with a finger pointed in my direction. The finger dropped when he frowned and blinked. "Wait. What the heck are you doing here?" Horror lit his eyes. "Hold on one minute. It's a school day! Are you playing a hooky?!"
"Yeah. But don't look so scandalized—you're playing hooky, too."
"Yeah, but I'm a delinquent. You're a model student." He crossed his arms over his chest and scowled. "You should go back to school right now. I mean it!"
"You and what army?" I quipped. I slung my body around the machine and plopped into the driving chair. "Anyway. So what's the occasion?"
He frowned. "Occasion for what?"
"For skipping school."
He stared. Then his cheeks turned the shade of a fire engine, or thereabouts.
"What, a guy's gotta have an occasion to skip?" he said, voice a tad higher than normal. "Can't just skip 'cause I felt like it? Why's there gotta be a reason, huh?"
I shrugged. "I mean. I guess there doesn't have to be a reason."
"Darn tootin' there doesn't." He turned up his nose, proud to have won the argument—or so he thought. "I just felt like playin' some games today, that's all."
I traced my hand around the edge of the game's plastic steering wheel.
"So you skipping today," I said, "doesn't have anything to do with the weird dream you had last night?"
It was almost cartoonish, the way Kuwabara's expression turned from blank to shocked to disturbed in the span of a few seconds. I'd struck the nerve I'd been aiming for, judging by this range of reactions. The big guy stared at me with horror-widened eyes and stammered, stuttered, spluttered: "How did you—I mean, why do you—I mean, I didn't have any dreams, I don't know what you're—"
"I know when you're lying," I deadpanned. "You didn't dream of kissing Yusuke because you have a subconscious crush on him, if that's what you're afraid of."
Kuwabara stopped talking. "Wait. How did you know I dreamed—?"
"Because I had the dream, too." I shrugged when his jaw dropped. "Smelled like Yusuke's hair gel again, so I figured he was trying to communicate something. And I figured he'd contact more than just me, so…"
"So this is really happening?" Kuwabara said, filling in the gaps when I trailed off. "Yusuke is going to—?" His cheeks colored again. "If I—if you—if one of us—?"
"Yup," I said, and because Kuwabara still looked so utterly terrified, I tossed my hair with a winning smile. "It's time our favorite sleeping beauty wakes the hell up."
Kagome cackled like a hyena. "Please tell me you got Kuwabara to kiss him!"
I glowered. "You're a pervert, you know that?"
A flippant wink. "Guilty as charged."
"You're also incorrigible."
"And you love it."
"True. And you'll love what happened next."
Kuwabara and I waited in silence at Yusuke's bedside. The golden glow crept up his body, from feet to legs to hips to chest to face, like water rising in a bathtub. Outside the window a few birds chirped. Other than that, silence reigned.
"So…what happens now?" Kuwabara said when even Yusuke's hair started glowing. He hunched in a chair, dread visible in every single pore. "I mean, somebody's gotta do it. But who's gonna…?"
"It's gotta be me, I think," I said. "No telling where Atsuko is. And I wouldn't make you do this, obviously."
Kuwabara sagged, dread giving way to relief. But then he frowned and sat up straighter.
"Sorry, Keiko, but I gotta ask…are you comfortable with this?" he asked.
His concern—his sweet, touching concern—would've made me smile most days. Most days I'd crack a joke and tell him something frivolous, tease him for worrying over me so much.
Today, my breathing merely hitched, and I found myself unable to smile.
No. No, I wasn't comfortable with this. Kissing a child who had a history of being romantically interested in the character I inhabited left a foul taste in my mouth, literally and figuratively. But there was no way I could explain any of this to Kuwabara. I covered my unease by running my hands over my short hair, as though its new length distracted me.
"Yusuke is for sure going to tease me about it until the day we freaking die," I eventually grated out, "so maybe he should stay dead." I leaned over and flicked his forehead, channeling all my uncertain energy into an affectionate scowl. "Hear that, ya big jerk? I do this, you owe me!"
I thought I'd covered well enough, but when I looked up, Kuwabara was still staring at me. A blush crept high and hectic across his sharp cheekbones.
"Keiko. If you. Um." He took a deep breath. "If you really don't want to, I—I—"
"Stop." I put up a hand. "You look like you're gonna be sick."
He pressed his knuckled to his mouth, blush fading into pallor. I laughed. Good ol' Kuwabara. Always looking out for his friends.
"It's OK. Thanks for offering—really, I know that was painful—but it's OK." I looked down at Yusuke and the breathing apparatus covering his face. "Kissing him isn't a big deal."
Kuwabara's nausea faded under the weight of confusion. "It's not?"
"No. It's like giving CPR." Wasn't sure if I said that for my benefit or his. "No big deal."
Kuwabara looked suspicious. "Are you sure?"
I shrugged. "Whatever the case, a kiss is a small price to pay for getting him back."
He paused, eyes widening. Then he looked down at Yusuke's sleeping face.
"Yeah," he murmured. "I guess it is."
We sat in silence for a time, watching Yusuke glow like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Kuwabara seemed lost in thoughts I couldn't quite discern. Eventually I broke the silence with a laugh.
"Once he's back, we're gonna go to karaoke," I declared. "The two of you are gonna fight a lot. I'll kick both your asses and patch you up, we'll study together and—"
"Are you OK?" Kuwabara said.
I stopped. My voice had risen as I spoke, out of my control and cracking with emotion. I took a deep breath.
"Yeah," I said. "I just miss him so much." That was the stone cold truth, for all my reservations about the stupid kiss. "And now he's almost here…it's hard to believe."
"Do you think it'll work?" Kuwabara asked. "The kiss, I mean?"
"God, I hope so." If I kissed Yusuke for nothing, I'd track down Koenma and wring his neck myself. Standing up, I clapped my hands together and moved to Yusuke's side. He was glowing all the way now; the time had come. "OK. No sense beating around the bush. Here I go."
Kuwabara peered at me from between his fingers as I fiddled with Yusuke's respirator and began removing the tube. "Oh, Keiko! I can't watch!"
"Oh, grow up, you big baby," I groused. I fell quiet as I dealt with Yusuke's ventilator the way the nurses had shown me. Once it was removed and I'd wiped stray saliva from Yusuke's chin, I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.
"I better not be doin' this for nothin', understand?" I murmured in near-inaudible English.
I leaned down and pressed my lips to his.
As far as kisses go, it was as chaste as the kisses I'd given my mother and grandmother when they put me to sleep at night: warm, dry and soft and simple, accompanied by a rush of breath as he exhaled. Nothing to make the heart race.
So why, then, did my heart stammer like a nervous schoolboy when I kissed Yusuke?
And not in a girl-kissing-a-boy way, mind you. The minute I kissed him, something in my chest tightened and then burst, sending a wave of odd heat coursing through my body. I gasped against Yusuke's mouth but the heat ricocheted against my ribs and chased that inhaled breath back out of my lips. I flinched, crashing onto the floor on my ass, because suddenly contact with Yusuke felt like kissing a bowl of poprocks.
Kuwabara appeared at my side in an instant.
"Did it—?" he asked.
"I'm not sure," I said.
We waited a moment, staring at our comatose friend. One moment turned into two, then three.
"Do you think—?" Kuwabara said.
Just then, Yusuke gasped. His spine bowed, chest rising toward the ceiling, and with a pop the golden glow suffusing his body scattered in a burst of glittering sparks (that hadn't in the anime, came my distant observation). It was my turn to gasp as a warm wind blew my hair from my face, but just as suddenly as it appeared, the wind subsided—leaving Yusuke lying on his back, breath churning from his mouth like he'd been running a marathon. His head lolled to the side, covers kicked all askew, mouth agape as he tried to breathe on his own for the first time in months.
Our eyes met.
It was like being thawed after a winter of immobility. I lurched to my knees and threw myself toward his side with a feral screech of his name.
"Yusuke! Yusuke, oh my god, Yusuke!" He tried to sit up, rolling to his side and pushing up with his weak arms. I attempted to ease him back onto the bed but he waved me off, rasping and wheezing and coughing. Eventually I realized he was trying to speak. Just one word, over and over again.
"Water," he was saying. "Water. Water!"
"Oh, I got it! I got it!" Kuwabara yelped. I didn't turn around, but feet pounding on the floor told me he'd run for the kitchen.
Yusuke, meanwhile, flopped onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. His hand trembled when he tried to reach for his hair (it was in his eyes, lacking its usual gel) but the IVs in his arm pinched and made movement impossible. He ground out something that sounded suspiciously like a curse and reached for the tubes.
"No," I said. "No, don't pull those out, here, let me—"
I grasped his arm with one hand and grabbed a gauze pad off the nurse's tray next to his bed. I took out the IVs as quickly as I could, pressing the holes in his skin with the gauze to stem the bleeding.
"Kei—Keiko."
I looked up. Yusuke stared at me through hooded eyes, bleary like he'd just woken from a very long nap (which I suppose he had, in a very literally way). His voice sounding like it had gone through a woodchipper.
"I'm here," I said. My voice cracked; my eyes pricked. "I'm here, honey."
"Y-your hair."
Took a minute for me to realize what he was talking about. I shook my head with a helpless smile. Of all the things for him to ask about…
"It got burned off," I said.
He tried to talk. Collapsed into a coughing fit. Sweat slicked his forehead like morning mist. I fretted—where the hell was that water, Kuwabara?—but soon his coughs quieted. I told him not to talk, but he didn't listen. Yusuke never listened.
"You look…like a boy," Yusuke said—and he smiled that same devil-may-care smile he was famous for. My ire flared at the comment.
"And you look like a money's ass," I retorted—and without warning, the tears took over, because that insult of his was so him, so Yusuke, that my hurt feelings merely felt like home. Tears coursed down my cheeks; I fisted my hands in his shirt and cried into his chest, big heaving sobs of relief and happiness I couldn't quell.
That gentle, teasing insult brought the realization home.
I hadn't fucked up canon.
Yusuke was back.
I'd done it.
I hadn't realized how direly I needed this to happen until it did, and now, I was lost to my own emotions. I cried even harder when a hand touched my boy-short hair in a weak, trembling show of comfort.
"That's my Keiko," Yusuke wheezed. His strained, rusty voice took on a wicked tone. "N-nice kiss, by the way."
I sniffled, pushed away from him, and wiped my eyes on my sleeve. "Shut up."
His grin widened. "…too bad…your breath stinks."
I glared. He laughed. Another coughing fit took over—and this time it didn't end, even after Kuwabara came back with the water. The next hour passed in a blur. We called the doctors, tracked down Atsuko, called my mother, had Yusuke taken to a hospital where his miracle of an awakening could be poked and prodded and pondered by people who didn't understand his recovery couldn't be attributed to natural causes.
His resurrection was supernatural, and from that moment forward, the supernatural would dog his steps like a bloodhound on a hunter's scent.
"So he's back." Kagome looked as excited as I'd felt when Yusuke first woke up, grinning and all but bouncing in her seat. "He's really, really back?"
"Yeah," I said. I couldn't help but smile. "He is."
"But wait." Kagome put a finger to her chin. "That was like…a month ago, right? Before the Winter Holiday and New Years? That was the last time I saw you."
I nodded. "That's right."
"So he's been back for a month." She processed this. "How's he been since he woke up?"
"Pretty OK, I guess. Except for the grumpiness."
"Grumpiness?"
I twisted a napkin between my fingers, thinking of the past month. Yusuke hadn't been the most pleasant company, that was for sure, but I also didn't blame him for it. I'd be in a bad mood, too, if I was in his place. Hell, I had been in his place in my past life before, but that's a story for another time.
"Well…let's just say Yusuke is a free spirit," I said. "He doesn't like being cooped up."
Kagome's brow furrowed. "Why is he cooped up?"
"Same reason anyone who was in a coma for months would be cooped up."
Her brow furrowed more. "Oh?"
I didn't blame her for not predicting what happened. The truth of the matter had surprised me, too. Based on the anime, I hadn't expected what happened next. But this wasn't an anime series. This was real life (albeit a version of real life influenced by an anime series) and logic dictated reality must diverge from fiction…much as Yusuke hated to admit it.
And boy, did he hate to admit it.
I hated to admit it, too, but for reasons quite different from Yusuke's.
Kagome cocked her head to the side. I smiled.
"He's been cooped up lately," I told Kagome, "because he's not quite done with physical therapy."
She looked as surprised as I'd felt the first time I was told Yusuke would need that therapy to regain use of his limbs—as surprised, and as worried. Turns out the anime had done nothing to prepare me for the trial that lay ahead, and the story of Yusuke's resurrection didn't end with our fated kiss.
Like I'd told Kagome before: "This story might take a while."
NOTES:
This is shorter than usual but I'm crunched for time this week…and besides. Yusuke is back. I figure that deserves its own chapter. ;)
NQK can't get over being 40 when Yusuke is 14. Wanted to make it clear that for her, relationships will have to wait. Not saying they're an impossible pairing, but NQK has anxiety about being a cougar. That's why she has her "no dating" rule so firmly in place.
Going to put a realistic spin on Yusuke's recovery. But no worries. He'll be back, punching the daylights out of his foes, faster than anyone expects. Much faster.
Next time: Yusuke, fairy tales, and Kurama. The YYH plot is about to take off like a rocket.
MANY THANKS to those who reviewed. You seriously rock my world each week. You are the BEST: ahyeon, Melissa Fairy, Counting Sinful Stars, Yunrii, rezgurnk, Mein Benutzername, DarkDust27, xenocanaan, EVA-Saiyajin, DiCuoreAllison, Marian, wennifer-lynn, Guest 3, rya-fire1, buzzk97, Freaky Shannon-igans, MetroNeko, Dotty Vintage, sousie, AC, ballet022, essex2, JollyLoser, CrystalVixen93, giant salamander, kimchi759, RedPanda923, Just 2 Dream of You, kittenfood, tatewaki2000, Orihime-San, Anonymous (your review was lovely and it came when I was having a bad day; thank you so much for the kindness), Alice, Sesshomarus'Luver, FireDancerNix, AnimePleasegood, and HereAfter!
