Warnings: None

Cultural Notes: New Year's is a MAJOR event in Japan, apparently. One of their biggest holidays. Some terms that come up this chapter: Kadomatsuare decorative trees placed near the door of a home after Christmas, left up until Jan. 7. Osechi-ryōri is the collective name of the various foods served on New Year's, served in a special box called a jubako box (basically a fancier bento). Ozōniis soup with mochi in it; it's a New Year's dish. Fukuwaraiis a game like "pin the tail on the donkey" only you stick facial features onto a big face while blindfolded instead of a tail onto a donkey's ass. Hanetsuki is a game in which you hit a shuttlecock back and forth with racquets and try to keep it in the air. In Japan you send postcards out to friends and family in honor of the New Year; it's briefly mentioned in this chapter. Kōhaku Uta Gassenis a signing competition, red team v. white team, hosted every year in Japan on New Year's Eve. It's very popular and watched by most everyone (sort of like the Times Square Ball Drop for Americans). I think that's everything.


Lucky Child

Chapter 74:

"Red vs. White"


Wrapped in a thick down blanket, I slept—but only barely. Every movement of my foot stirred the comforter, summoned an inkling of winter cold beneath the covers and against my frozen toes, and with it came the dusty scent of dry desert air. Cold pressed against the bay windows above my bed as thickly as the late night darkness. When a hand alit on my back and the mattress dipped beneath my Nana's weight, I awoke in an instant. I'd been expecting her, luxuriating in the warmth of my bed, reveling in the cozy pajamas insulating me from the chilly air outside. Her hand felt even warmer than the sheets, wrinkled skin even softer, too.

"Wake up, sweet girl," Nana said. She pressed her other hand to Cousin Jason's forehead, where he lay on the pull-out mattress on the floor on the floor. "You too, sweet boy. It's almost time."

I hopped up, but Jason was harder to persuade. Nana took him by the hand as I led the way down the dark hall and into the bright kitchen, pure white tile scrubbed to mirrored sheen. More darkness pressed at the windows here, threatened to strangle the orchids growing in the planter box by the sink, but the brass chandelier above the kitchen table kept the gloom at bay. Through the archway into the living room the TV murmured, a glittering sphere atop its pole slowly descending toward a dancing, undulating crowd. I eyed the ticking red timer above the ball as Nana poured three flutes of sparkling apple juice and set them on the counter. Only two minutes to go, the timer told me.

"Shoes," Nana murmured. "Everyone, find your shoes."

Jason didn't move. He rubbed his eyes, blinking slowly as Nana helped him put his sneakers on—but even when tired, his eyes lingered on me. He saw me watching the Times Square footage and stared at it, too, not understanding why but mimicking me anyway. Nana chuckled and draped jackets around our shoulders, hustling us out the door with the champagne flutes held in a clinking bundle in her hand.

She lived at the top of a hill back then, way above the Riverwalk, highest house on Washington Street—one of the highest houses in town, truth told. Her back porch faced south, toward the river, overlooking the tops of swaying pecan trees and the crooked tilt of the neighbor's pueblo-style house. Jason swayed on his little legs, bleary and shivering as Nana made him hold his apple juice. A stray mesquite pod snapped under my foot when I stepped on it. I sniffed my juice when she handed it to me, nose wrinkling as bubbles teased my sinuses.

Though I longed to take a sip, I refrained—because just then, Nana glanced at her watch and smiled.

"You ready?" she said. She crouched between me and Jason, spry (we were only children then, eight and five years old respectively, her knees not yet gripped by arthritis). Arm around each of our shoulders, holding us warm and close in the dry December cold, Nana began to whisper. "Ten, nine…"

"Eight," I said.

"S-seven?" Jason mumbled, looking at me askance for help, and I gave him a proud nod.

"Six. Five. Four," said Nana.

"Three, two, one," I finished.

And together the three of us declared (though Jason made his declaration through a yawn): "Happy New Year!"

Then we drank our juice at last, and to the south the sky came alive with rainbow fire.

Their sparkle a complement to the bubbles on my tongue, fireworks shot up from the Riverwalk bridge a few blocks over, our vantage point the best in town and unknown to anyone but us. Our secret New Year's spot, tradition sacred as church but not nearly so stifling to my young eyes. From inside the house came the clamor of the Times Square ball drop, raucous and rousing and revelatory. Jason started at the booms and pops echoing through the clear west Texas air, sleep clearing from his bright blue eyes, but Nana's hand on his shoulder calmed any anxiety brewing in their depths. Soon he began to sway again; Nana tutted and scooped him up, carrying him back inside with a call of my name over her shoulder.

I didn't follow her inside right away. I waited a moment longer, watching bottle rockets and fire flowers fill the night's sky, blotting out the stars with their own insistent light.

"Happy New Year," I said to myself and to the fireworks—and then Nana called me back inside, and I climbed into my nice, warm bed to start off the New Year.

The next day Nana made me eat a whole bowl of black-eyed peas and collard greens ("It's a tradition; for luck," she said) but since she had let me see the fireworks at midnight, I only complained a little.


The day of our New Year's party, Mom woke me up at the crack of dawn.

We cleaned, first, because it was tradition, and because that's how my mother had spent New Year's Eve with her family when she was a little girl. Dad helped us purify the house from top to bottom in preparation for the New Year, and when Mom deemed the house appropriately spotless, we headed for the kitchen to prepare the osechi-ryōri.

Unlike the New Year's food of my past, the osechi-ryōri did not contain any black-eyed peas or collard greens. Rather, this traditional meal came packed in special jubako boxes arranged in neat towers, containers filled to the brim with traditional foods symbolizing wealth, prosperity, and all the other things one would ideally like to have in the New Year—many of them pickled, harkening to a time when Japan lived without refrigeration. Mom and Dad and I had been making these boxes together on New Year's Eve since I was a little girl, but this year the crowd promised to be bigger; we had our work cut out for us. We stewed buckwheat noodles and steamed enough mochi and fried enough prawns to feed an army, prepping an enormous vat of delicious ozōni to serve when guests arrived. When we finished and stepped back to survey our work, I was pleased to note it looked absolutely delicious, air perfumed with the scents of a promising New Year.

I just hoped I'd planned everything OK, and that this would be enough.

We'd decorated the house and set up the game area on the restaurant floor the night before, just to make it easier on ourselves the day of. It had felt a little odd, decorating for the occasion—mostly because we hadn't done it the year before and Dad had misplaced the kadomatsu and fukuwarai set sometime in the interim. Yusuke's death and the subsequent skipping of our usual New Year's activity had thrown a wrench in the works a bit. All truth told, I hadn't been sure we'd resume this tradition this year—and if we did, I certainly didn't expect the party to be large.

But then my mother had happened, and she had insisted.

"Yusuke was comatose through New Year's last year," she said when she broached the subject of our annual party. "We should the start off his first full year of consciousness with a bang, don't you think?"

I'd been sitting at the restaurant's bar and only paying half attention, nose buried in my winter break homework. "If you say so, Mom," I said, stuffing a fried dumpling into my mouth.

"I do say so. And you've made so many new friends this year, too, and we skipped your birthday this year given all the hubbub over Yusuke. It's about time we had a party." She counted on her fingers as she said, "You can invite Yusuke, Kuwabara, Minamino, the girls from Sarayashiki Junior High—oh, and those nice girls who came over for cooking lessons, too." She smiled at me sidelong, primly brushing of the front of her apron. "We could even invite that young man who always wears black who comes by for dinner on Thursdays. You know. The one you think I don't know about?"

I nearly did a spit-take at that last comment, but Mom breezed past it with party plans and no sign of wanting to interrogate me about Hiei, and I felt I had no choice but to comply lest I incur her wrath—or worse, her curiosity.

Once I got over the shock of her proposal, it made sense that Yusuke's resurrection would prompt the resurrection of this party. Back when we were kids, my mom had started throwing the party for the combined Yukimura and Urameshi households mostly as a way of keeping an eye on Yusuke on New Year's Eve without making it seem like babysitting (to the independent Yusuke) or charity (to the stubborn Atsuko). She also used her family's New Year's Eve cleaning tradition as an excuse to clean Yusuke's apartment, teaching him how to hold a broom and dustpan as she tidied up the Urameshi house. The event helped keep Atsuko close to home, too, free booze enticing her to stay nearby instead of wandering too far afield drunk. With Yusuke gone, my parents hadn't seen the need for a party (Atsuko had just stayed home in a tanked stupor that year) but with him back, it was time to revamp old traditions. At my mother's request I made invitations and sent them to all pertinent parties—the core crowd of Yusuke and Atsuko, Kuwabara and his family, Kurama, and Botan. I tried to get away with just inviting them, but Mom insisted I include the slightly outer circle she'd originally asked for: namely Eimi and Michiko, Junko and Amagi. Still a small group, even if a bit bigger than usual, and with this number I felt comfortable indeed.

And then the guest list had expanded even further, quite accidentally and entirely thanks to my big mouth.

The panicked phone call from Amanuma came midway through December, just as I was putting together invitations for the party in the first place (and writing all my traditional New Year's postcards, to boot). I knocked a few of them off my desk when answering the phone, cursing as they fell to the carpet with a whuff, but I forgot about them the second I held the receiver to my ear. Amanuma didn't even bother greeting me. He babbled too fast to follow, voice cracking with frantic worry—and with a sniffle here and there, like a wire inside him might snap and I might find myself with a crying kid on my hands. Not ideal. Best cut this looming breakdown off at the pass. I sat on my bed and tangled the phone's cord around my hand, foot propped up on my swivel chair, shoulders tight and jaw clenched.

"Hey, hey kiddo, slow down," I said, cutting through the jabber. "Take a deep breath for me, OK?"

"Oh—okay," he said, doing as asked with a gasp.

"Good. One more."

He did as told.

"And one more?"

Another deep breath, this one holding steady at last. On his exhale I heard relief; he'd finally calmed, it seemed, and a good thing, too, because he'd been nigh unintelligible before.

"That's better," I said. "Now tell me what's wrong." A thought occurred; I asked: "Do you need an ambulance?"

"N-no. Nothing like that," he said. "Just—you were right, Keiko. You were right."

That desperate emphasis of his had me sitting up straighter. "Right about what?"

"My friend—my adult friend. He is shady."

And my back turned to steel and plywood, all tension and no give. The cord bit into my hand when I gripped it tight. "What'd he do?" I asked, thought immediately leaping to the dreaded Chapter Black. "Amanuma, what did he—?"

"Nothing bad," he was quick to assure me. "He wanted to see me and I was excited to see him since I hadn't heard from him in, like, forever, but he started talking about how he wanted to… how he wanted to change the world? And how he needed my help to do it." A note of resolve colored his voice when he said: "I'm just a kid. I'm smart and I'm awesome, but I'm a kid." And the resolve faded into uncertainty again. "He should be asking a grown-up instead of me, right?"

"Right, kiddo," I said. "He should."

A relieved sigh. "That's what I thought."

His relief didn't carry over to me, however, because there was no way Sensui would take that kind of rejection lying down. "So what did you do?" I asked, clutching at the phone.

"I told him that."

I blinked. "You told him—?"

"I told him what you said," Amanuma said, like it was just that simple (and to him I suppose it was). "I told him that he should ask a grownup and that I'm just a kid and that it's weird he wants the help of a gradeschooler and that he wanted to hang out with me so much. And he said I was different than other kids. Special, even. But…"

"But you know better than to fall for that," I said, gently.

A long pause followed. I thought the line had gone dead, but soon Amanuma sighed.

"Yeah," he said in a small, sad voice. "I do." And in a stronger voice that quavered at the edges, he said: "I said we can't be friends anymore."

It was the quaver that told me how brave he was being, standing up for himself this way. It had been no small feat, no offhand decision he'd made on a whim. Sensui had targeted the boy when he was lonely, after all. To Amanuma, Sensui had been a symbol of companionship. Of hope. Of acceptance.

And now Amanuma had rejected that symbol wholesale.

That took courage I couldn't begin to name.

"You did the right thing," I said. "I know it sucks. But you did the right thing, I promise."

"I know I did." And I detected no hesitation in his voice at all, especially when he said, "Because when I said that, he looked scary, and he got up and walked away. I mean, he looked scary, nee-san." I heard him shudder through the phone. "It was awful, the way he looked at me. No real friend would look at me like that."

I almost shuddered, too. Anime Sensui had had some teeth on his stare. I'd hate to think what the genuine article might be capable of.

"That's right—no real friend would do that," I said. "I'm proud of you."

"You're what?"

"I proud of you for standing up for yourself." Through the line he made a noise of pleased, strangled surprise; I grinned. "Sounds like you did great."

"Yeah. Yeah, I think I did. Um." He hesitated. Said in a rush: "Think I can came hang out with you and Yusuke this week?"

I looked at the invitations on my desk, half complete and time sensitive. "Um—?"

"Oh. It's OK," he said, disappointment obvious. "I don't need—"

The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them: "You free on New Year's Eve, kiddo?"

And that's how Amanuma got invited to my New Year's Eve soiree.

Like I said: Entirely my fault, all thanks to my big mouth.

After we cleaned the house and cooked, my family went upstairs to bathe and get dressed. Mom bought me a nice new dress for the occasion, frilly and sweet and not at all my style, a high-necked red dress with buttons up the front, patterned in flowers with enormous puffy sleeves (damn you, Yoshihiro Togashi, and your terrible but accurate depiction of early 90s fashion). The necklace Minato had given me clashed with the outfit horribly, but the chocking neckline with its ruffled and buttoned collar hid the bauble from view; small favor, I decided, but a welcome one. Mom dried my hair and styled it with an enormous bow on top, emo-punk bangs tucked neatly off to one side under a headband for the sake of decorum. The bow in particular made me feel a bit silly, but it made my mother happy so I was willing to put up with the indignity for a night for her sake.

"You look so cute," she said, sighing as I twirled for her in the poofy skirt. "You're always wearing Yusuke's cast-off clothes and whatever he's grown out of recently. This is much better."

She had a point, so long as she wasn't including the horrible bow in her assessment, but I digress.

While Mom went off to get ready, herself, I headed up to my room to relax a little before the party started—if by "relax" you mean "pace restlessly from one end of the room to the other," which I did. It was tough to sit still. I kept looking at the clock, watching it tick closer and closer to 8 PM, and when it hit 7:15 I collapsed onto my bed with my face in my pillow. I was nervous, not that anyone should blame me. This was the first time a lot of the friends would mix, a variety of different social groups colliding at long last. And of course I'd prepped everyone to be on good behavior, warning Yusuke and Kuwabara and Botan to not call Kurama by that name and all that jazz—but would it be enough? I just hoped everything went to plan…

But of course, I had no such luck, and said luck showed itself before the party even started.

Half an hour before the party's official 8 PM start time, there came a knock at the door. "Sweetheart?" Mom called through the panel. "One of your friends is here."

I sat up in bed and stared at the door, nonplussed. Yusuke was incapable of being on time, Kurama was too polite to be early, Kuwabara and the girls were all probably too cool to be on time to a party—Amanuma, maybe? Sighing, I said "be right down" and smoothed my dress in the mirror by my closet before padding downstairs in my socks. Mom led the way, escorting me onto the main restaurant floor all awash with New Year's decorations, where a young man in a tweed coat with elbow patches and a pair of black slacks waited by the buffet table. He turned when he heard us coming, raising one hand in curt greeting. Curly black hair glimmered above a smattering of freckles and the glare of thick half-moon glasses. "Hello," he said, adjusting said glasses with his middle finger. "I'm the first one here, I take it."

"Kaito!" I scurried over to him, caught halfway between a smile and a frown. "Hey, man. You're early."

"As is my custom," he replied. "Is that a problem?"

"No, just—I wasn't expecting anyone so soon. And people are usually late to parties, that's all."

For some reason, Kaito scowled. "The article I consulted did not deem tardiness to be acceptable party etiquette."

I stared at him. "You consulted a book for party manners."

"A magazine," he corrected. "It was most informative." A long pause, and a lightbulb went off behind his bespectacled eyes. "Ah. I see now. 'Fashionably late' is an English idiom, isn't it?"

"Yup."

"I should have known." A thin smile, but a genuine one. "Oh well. Spilled milk and all that." He thrust out his hands. "I brought this. I hope it is acceptable."

He brandished a melon at me, the fancy kind you only buy on special occasions (though not the type that costs hundreds of bucks, because he was just a kid with pocket money no matter how hard he pretended otherwise), wrapped in fancy department store paper and tied with an enormous ribbon—a very traditional gift, most likely one recommended by that magazine of his. I took it from him with a bow and a giggle, unable to keep back an observation of, "You don't go to parties often, do you?"

He arched a brow. "My lack of popularity is amusing to you, is it?"

"Hey, I haven't been invited to a party in years, so I can't throw stones." Tucking the melon under my arm, I gestured for him to follow me. "Well, come in, early bird, but be warned. When you show up early, you wind up having to help out in the kitchen."

"Harrumph. I dislike standing idle, anyway. Idle minds are the first to go to waste." As we came to a stop in the kitchen doorway, he caught my mother's eye as she bent over a pot of steaming noodles. "With what matter may I be of assistance, Yukimura-san?"

Mom looked at him, startled by his formal demeanor and the methodical way he'd begun to roll up his sleeves. She looked at me. "Uh…?"

"Oh boy." I stepped forward to make the proper introductions. "Mom, this is Kaito Yuu. He's that author friend I told you about."

Her face brightened at once. "Oh. Well, that explains a lot, now doesn't it?" She reached across the kitchen and under the island in the middle, hefting a serving platter of fried prawns. "If you could help me carry these to the warmer in the dining room—"

"Happy to," said Kaito.

Watching Kaito interact with my mom and dad was just the littlest bit hilarious. My parents seemed a bit off-put by Kaito's odd, pointed remarks about workplace efficiency and maximizing labor output as he helped us set out the food and make a bowl of punch, but the subtle twitch at the corner of Dad's mouth and the amused sparkle in Mom's eye told me they found him funny, if not a little weird. As Kaito chatted Mom's ear off about the effect of citric acid on plastic byproducts, Dad pulled me aside by the elbow and whispered, "I don't know where you keep finding these boys of yours, but that one's hilarious."

"Ask him about literature and wait till he gets going. He's fantastic." I nudged him in the ribs. "Oh. Have you picked a team yet?"

"No. Has your mother?"

"Not to my knowledge. Figured we'd draw lots when everyone gets here."

"Good plan." His turn to nudge me, a knowing grin on his bearded face. "You sticking with Red this year?"

"You know it," I said, grinning back.

"That's my girl. Which reminds me." He eyed Mom askance and angled himself away from her, shielding his hands with his torso. "I got what you asked for."

With all the sketchy secrecy of a drug dealer trying to pass along a dime bag of green within eyesight of a beat cop, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a box covered in velvet with a minute gold catch on the front—the box that had housed the bracelet he'd given Mom for her birthday the year prior, I think. This he handed to me with a secretive flourish and another guilty glance at my mother. I beamed at him (on the sly, of course), took the box, and peeked inside. Cackled like the Wicked Witch after dropping a house on someone. Dad shushed me; I stifled the laughter with my fist.

"God bless the foreign marketplace," I whispered at him. "Bless it."

Dad tutted. "You won't be saying that if White wins."

"I have faith in Team Red, father of mine," I said, and I stowed the jewelry box in my pocket before Mom could see what we were up to.

With Kaito's help, we finished setting out the food just as the clock struck 8 PM. We'd moved the TV from upstairs earlier and set it in the middle of the dining room, channel tuned to NHK and the Kōhaku Uta Gassen pre-show, and just as we settled in to wait for the other guests I heard the restaurant's front doors rattle open. Leave it to Kurama to get here precisely on time, of course. He stepped inside the restaurant and spotted us, smiling as he shrugged out of his coat and hung it on the pegs by the door, and then he paused to take off his outdoor shoes and put on indoor slippers.

Kaito, sitting next to me at one of the many dining tables, leaned in close to mutter, "You invited him?"

I swatted his arm as I stood up. "Stop pretending like you two aren't friends."

"Debatable," Kaito said, shoving his glasses up his nose. "Highly, highly debatable."

"Your face is debatable."

Kaito looked quite appalled. "Yukimura, he is my nemesis."

"Nemesis, shem-e-sis." I walked away. "Minamino, welcome!"

"Thank you for having me," the aforementioned said as he crossed the restaurant. He dipped a bow to my mother and father, lock of bloody hair falling over the shoulder of his crisp white shirt. "Yukimura-sans. Thank you for having me this evening. You have rescued me from a night of boredom, and I am quite grateful as a result."

"Oh, that's right. You would've spent tonight alone," I said. "Your mom had plans, didn't she?"

"She did." His smile was beatific, almost angelic. "She has been seeing someone and is spending the evening with him."

My mother put her hands to her cheeks. "How romantic!" she said. "A date on New Year's Eve!"

"Indeed." His smile widened. "I'm wondering if there's a proposal on the horizon, actually."

"Wouldn't that be so lovely!" Mom said with a delighted gasp. She touched Dad's knee, bouncing a little in her seat. "We'll have to have her and her fiancé over for dinner." She beamed at Kurama, utterly delighted. "I've been wanting to meet your lovely mother for so long now, anyway—it would be a perfect excuse."

"I'll let her know," Kurama said, and he looked rather pleased, himself. "She'll no doubt be honored by the invitation."

Before Mom could really dive in and nail down Shiori's schedule (and judging by the eager look on her face, she wanted to do just that) the door opened again and emitted both a chilly December breeze and a few adults, employees from the restaurant my parents had invited to balance out the adult-to-kid ratio of this party. As my parents rose to greet them, I mused that the gathering had really expanded outward this year, and not just for me.

Kaito looked Kurama up and down, one brow climbing high across his forehead. "As insufferably charming as ever, Minamino."

"Hello to you too, Kaito," said Kurama, pleasant as a warm spring day.

"A proposal." I dug an elbow into Kurama's arm a few times. "You dog. You didn't tell me!"

"I have no evidence. Just a feeling. We shall see, though." But his smile belied his demure words, knowing and secretive despite his claim to no evidence. "Who else are we expecting this evening?"

"Oh, the usual. Yusuke and Kuwabara and their families, Botan, Amagi and Junko from school, my friends Eimi and Michiko from my old school because there were way too many dudes on the guest list and we needed some girls," I said. "Oh, and Amanuma."

He nodded—and then he smiled a smile I wasn't quite sure I liked. "He's about your friend Minato's age," Kurama said. "They might get along."

I had prepared myself in case he asked after my absent friend, and I didn't miss a beat. "Minato can't make it, unfortunately, but he sends his regards," I said, looking appropriately sad all the while.

The truth, though? I'd invited Minato, but we'd mutually decided it was best not to tempt fate and let him encounter Kurama again so soon. The guest list was a careful blend of people in the Core Group and Outliers like Junko, Eimi, and Kaito—people I wanted in my life, ones I didn't want to offend by not inviting to this party, but people who didn't know about the supernatural (yet, anyway). Amagi had one foot in the door and Kaito would join us eventually, but not so soon. Best Minato stay away for the time being, lie low until I could integrate him more organically… if we ever decided to integrate him into my life at all.

Not that Kaito or Kurama knew about any of that, of course. Kaito's face screwed up, snub nose wrinkling under the bridge of his glasses. "Who's Minato?" he asked.

"Kei's new German tutor," Kurama said.

Kaito's glasses swung my way. "You're taking German?"

"I tested out of English," I said, shrugging.

"Really. I wasn't aware." And yet being left out of the loop had him looking quite elated. "But if that's the case, I have a copy of Milton's Paradise Lost and I'm unconvinced that the translation we're using in class is up to snuff. If you would be so kind as to look over—"

"Yeah, yeah, sure thing—oh hey Amanuma, what's up?"

Amanuma chose that moment to make a very opportune entrance, saving me from a night of studying in the nick of goddamn time. The poor thing had been standing in the doorway looking lost, unnoticed amid the gaggle of adults still chatting near the coatrack, and when he heard my voice his face lit up. He kicked off his shoes, threw his coat down, and scampered over to us with an enormous grin on his small face.

"Nee-san!" he said, skidding to a halt in his socks on the wooden floor. "There you are!"

"Hey, kiddo," I said. "You make it in OK?"

"Yeah. Only a couple of drunk people on the train." He snickered. "I sent them the wrong way when they asked for directions back to Mushiyori."

It probably wasn't great of me to guffaw at the cheek of that, but I did anyway. "Nice one! Here, let me make introductions." I gestured at the appropriate parties and hoped to hell this wasn't about to go south. "Minamino, you know Amanuma. Amanuma, this is my friend Kaito Yuu from school."

"Nice to see you again, Amanuma," said Kurama with a warm smile.

"Pleased to meet you," Kaito concurred. His chin lifted, lips thinning somewhat. "If I'd known anyone else was coming from Mushiyori, I would've met them at the station."

Amanuma blinked. "You're from Mushiyori, too?"

"Yes."

Kurama looked at Kaito sidelong, brow knit. "Really? I wasn't aware of that."

At that Kaito smirked. "Maybe you're not as observant as you think you are."

"And you go to Meiou?" Amanuma said, ignoring the obvious needling playing out before him. He let out a bright laugh. "Your commute to school must be awful!"

But Kaito just shrugged. "I use the train ride for study time. It's not so bad."

"I mean, I guess so," said Amanuma, but he looked less than convinced. He laced his fingers together and tucked his hands behind his head, favoring Kaito up and down. "Didn't expect to meet anyone from my hometown. You any good at video games?"

Kaito shrugged again. "I'd like to think so."

"What kinds?" Amanuma asked.

"A true combatant never reveals his hand early," Kaito said—but rather than look offended, Amanuma just started to grin, and he let out a mischievous giggle that had the rest of us smiling, too.

"Oh, yeah," he said, "we are so gonna hit up the arcade. And I won't have to travel so far this time, either!" His bright eyes swung toward Kurama. "Say Minamino, did you—?"

As the kid began interrogated Kurama about a recent game they'd played, wondering whether or not Kurama had reached a certain level yet, Kaito took a brisk step to stand at my elbow. "A little young, isn't he?" he said, eyeing the kid over.

"You know me," I said, voice low. "Always taking people under my wing."

"Right. That is your modus operandi." He tilted his head at Amanuma. "Shall I make nice, in that case?"

"You'd like the kid if you got to know him," I said—because I got the sense it was true, and Amanuma deserved to make a few new friends after his recent breakup with Sensui. Kaito could fit the bill just fine. "He's smart as hell and could give you a run for your money at any game in the book. Still growing up a little, but aren't we all?"

Kaito looked pensive. "I suppose it would be nice to have a challenge at the arcade from time to time."

"Thought so." I put a hand between his shoulder blades and gave him a gentle shove. "Go make friends!"

"Fine," he said, "but you owe me that translation check when this is all said and done."

I got the sense he'd hold me to that promise whether he actually made friends with Amanuma or not—so it was a good thing I was a Milton fan. Suppressing a smile, I watched as Kaito joined the others and entered the conversation, taking advantage of their distraction to slip away toward the kitchen. So Amanuma, Kaito, and Kurama were here, which left Yusuke and Atsuko, Botan, the Kuwabara family, the girls from both of my schools… I needed to check on the food again, make sure it was ready to serve and that we'd made enough, do one last sweep for quality control and—

"Keiko, honey?"

I flinched and froze in the kitchen doorway, but it was only Dad striding down the stairs holding a piece of paper in his fist. He ran up and shoved it at me, then followed it up with a roll of tape.

"I forgot to put the closed notice earlier," he said, eyes roving over the kitchen at my back—probably looking for Mom, to see if she'd overhear. "Could you hang that up for me?"

"Sure thing, Dad," I said, and I made a show of hiding the paper under my shirt so Mom wouldn't see our undercover operation.

Not all businesses in Japan closed for New Year's, though many of them did, and it was customary for my parents to write a note to their regulars and hang it on the door next to the "closed" sigh—just a sweet touch to let customers know we were thinking about them. Avoiding the ever-growing bundle of my parents' adult friends that had accumulated near the kitchen, murmur of their voices filling the warm air, I grabbed my coat and shoes from their spot by the back door and looped around the restaurant through the side alley. My breath frosted on the air in great white puffs as I pulled free a bit of tape from the roll and tacked the note down at the corners on our front door. Dad's handwriting was choppy, sure, but it had a sincere quality I was certain any disappointed customers would respect, and as I stowed the tape away in my pocket and turned to go back inside, I smiled into my jacket collar. My parents really were great.

"Hey, Keiko!"

Tonight was the night of being startled from my reverie, as I was yet again this evening by another call of my name. A few dozen yards down the sidewalk a small battalion of hands waved in my direction, and when I saw to whom they belonged I broke out into both a grin and a run.

"Oh, hi guys!" I said as I trotted over. "Did you come here together? This is wild!"

"Nah," said Junko, and she gestured first at Amagi at her left and then at Eimi and Michiko, my two friends from Sarayashiki, on her right. "Just spotted them on the way here."

Eimi nodded at Junko and Amagi. "Remembered them from the coffee shop that one time." Her eyes flickered to the side with mild disapproval. "And then of course we saw him."

Kuwabara stood at the edge of the group of girls like a looming suit of armor in a china shop, out of place with knocked knees and elbows canted to the sides, awkwardly towering above the rest. At Eimi and Michiko's disapproving look he did a double take, hands coming up in defense. "Hey, don't look so mad! I didn't do nothing!"

Eimi and Michiko looked skeptical, however, at the claims of the young man they knew only as the #2 Top Delinquent of their middle school. Junko giggled behind one well-manicured hand. Amagi also looked amused (and also very cute in a black dress with a sweetheart neckline worn over a collared white shirt, black tights and shoes with little gold buckles, and oh god Keiko don't be a dork stop staring). To recover a little of my dignity, I gave Eimi and Mich and look that said 'play nice' and turned to Kuwabara.

"Where's your sister?" I said.

"Running late. Something about a hair dryer." He rolled his eyes. "She and Dad both needed it."

At that Michiko's brow furrowed. "You have a sister?"

"Yup! She's older, about 20." He beamed at me, thrusting out a wrapped box in his enormous hands. "Thanks for inviting me, Keiko, I mean it. I brought you this. I hope you like it because I picked it out special and, um."

He lapsed into silence, cheeks going a shade of bright pink. Eimi and Michiko watched this wearing twin expressions of alarm, the pair of them resembling a matched set of startled owls, but as I took the present from Kuwabara, Amagi stepped forward.

"Thanks for inviting us," she said, voice smooth and low and soft. "I brought a gift, as well."

"Thanks, girl," I said, trying to sound breezy (even though it had become my turn to flush around the ears just a little). Tucking their gifts under my arm, I said, "Well, come in, everybody. It's freezing out here."

Junko shivered right on cue, and they followed me in like a pack of particularly cold ducklings. Kuwabara spotted Kurama and the others over our heads as we stripped out of shoes, coats, and scarves, eyes lighting up as he waved. "Hey Ku—Amanuma!" he said, covering for the name mix-up with a bait-and-switch. "Hey Amanuma, Minamino!"

I started to follow after him, but before I could a hand wrapped around my elbow. This was Michiko, who stared open-mouthed across the restaurant at Kuwabara and the others—or more specifically, stared at Kurama. Her pigtails almost seemed to stand on end when she said, "Oh my god. Is that him?"

Behind her, Junko gave a roguish grin. "Yup. That's Minamino, all right."

Eimi stared with her mouth open as well, but she recovered so she could swat my arm. "Keiko! You've been holding out on us!"

"Amagi and Junko told us all about your pretty new friend," Michiko said with a horrific death stare. "You, meanwhile, haven't said a word."

Resisting the urge to shoot Amagi and Junko a death stare of my own, I shrugged. "Hey, I told you I'd made new friends at my new school. I mentioned Minamino by name, too."

Michiko remained unimpressed. "You didn't say he looked like that!"

Sensing an impending lecture and/or an interrogation about my nonexistent love life, I looked to the even keeled Amagi for rescue, but she just coughed into her fist at the sight of my plaintive stare. No help at all, then. Drat. I sighed and stared at the ceiling. "Oh my god, you two, please don't be weird with him. He's a human being. He's normal, not another specie!"

This was, of course, a lie, but they didn't need to know that. Still, despite their ignorance as to the supernatural, I wasn't fooling either of them.

"Um." Eimi put her hands on her wide hips. "That hair isn't normal."

"That hair is gorgeous," said Mich.

Junko cackled. "Your friends are a crackup, Keiko."

"If you say so." I pinned my former classmates with one of OG!Keiko's patented Firm Class-Rep Stares. "Just be cool. He's a person. It took me weeks to get him to come out of his shell and I don't want you two undoing it by being hyperactive fangirls and scaring him off, capisce?"

Eimi turned up her nose, eyes glittering with a spark of tease. "We make no promises."

Michiko looped her arm through Junko's. "If Keiko won't, Junko, then I insist you introduce us."

"Ha!" said Junko. "Sure!" And she offered her other arm to Eimi, escorting both girls toward the hapless and unsuspecting Kurama with a spring in her step and an alarmingly wicked gleam in her eye.

Amagi, though, lingered behind with me. She slipped into the space behind my elbow, the faintest breath of her perfume wafting over my face. "A normal human being, hmm?" she murmured, so quietly I had to strain to hear.

"As far as they know," I murmured back, and I put my finger to my lips. Amagi nodded, putting a digit over her mouth in return—but she smiled just a little, sharing with me this private joke, and my heart had no choice but to flutter. Damn teenage hormones reacting to pretty girls, am I right?

Lucky for me, Yusuke came along and put an end to those shenanigans posthaste.

Behind Amagi the restaurant door burst open, sliding along its track with a clatter so loud all conversation in the wide dining room ceased. Into the shocked silence swaggered Urameshi Yusuke (because of course he fucking did), dressed in his most garish windbreaker and offensive mom-jeans. Hands jammed with affected nonchalance into his pockets, hair shellacked into place with at least a gallon of gel, he stopped short when he saw me—but he was wearing sunglasses (at night because Yusuke is So Fucking Extra™ like that) and I couldn't quite make out the expression in his sure-to-be-devious eyes. Still, I knew it couldn't be anything good.

New Year's Eve was a night for warfare, and even if he'd slept through the festivities last year, I knew he couldn't have forgotten the stakes at play between us.

"Well, well, well," he said in a slow, deliberate drawl. He looked me up and down, hooking a finger over the glasses to slide them down his nose. "What do we have here?"

Over his shoulders appeared the faces of Botan and Atsuko, the former puzzled, the latter wearing a look of undisguised glee. Botan waved when she saw me; Atsuko took a swig from a bottle wrapped in brown paper, shoving past her son with grizzled chuckle. Yusuke cursed at her, then turned his attention back to me.

"Wow, Keiko," he said. "A dress?"

"Wow, Yusuke," I said, talking through my nose to mock him. "Sunglasses, at night?"

He scowled and shoved said glasses in his pocket. "I'm not the one wearing a dress!"

"Yeah, and what about it? My uniform is a skirt and you've seen me in that a million times."

"A dress isn't the same thing," he said, as if it were obvious and I was an idiot.

I scoffed. "Yes, it is."

He scoffed back. "No, it isn't."

"Yes, it is—White Team scum."

Yusuke's sly smile turned into an outright grin, all teeth and fire. "Oh ho. So the Red Team wench hasn't forgotten, after all."

Someone gasped at his language, and at that point I became vaguely aware of people wandering over, the press of bodies at my back, of Eimi and Michiko appearing in my periphery and looking stricken at the sight of the great Urameshi, their school's #1 Delinquent, facing off against me in the foyer. I tuned them out, though, crossing my arms and popping out a hip, defiant and smirking—because Yusuke might scare them, but I knew better.

"Of course I didn't forget," I said. "You're the one who skipped a year, not me."

"Hey!" Yusuke said, irate. "I didn't skip on purpose!"

"You sure?" I inspected my nails as if they were far more important than this petty conversation. "Because you know who won last year, right?"

Yusuke ground his teeth, but he said nothing. I threw up "rock on" horns and stuck out my tongue.

"That's right, baby!" I said. "Red Team won. Suck it!"

"I didn't get hit by a car on purpose, Keiko," Yusuke said, sulking.

"Oh, but I think you did." I walked right up into his face, nose to nose and belligerent. "I think you had a premonition that the penalty would be especially painful and threw yourself into traffic to escape it, you coward."

He let out a low whistle, getting up in my face with an exaggerated swagger. "Careful, now. Them's fightin' words."

"Makes sense since tonight's a fightin' night." I reached into my pocket for the box my father had given me. Opened it. Showed it to him. "And I'm packing heat, baby!"

He looked at the box. His eyes widened. And then he started grinning, laughter building in his chest and hissing from between his teeth like air from a burst balloon.

"Ooh, color me scared," he said, not sounding scared in the slightest. "But speaking of premonitions… I won't be the one eating that thing this year, I can feel it."

"Says you, asshole."

"Says you, hag."

"What are you two talking about?" said Botan from her spot in the doorway. She looked more than a little peeved, utterly bamboozled by the display. "Fighting words? Red Team?" Hands flew up, blue ponytail flapping as she shook her head. "I don't understand!"

Atsuko, lounging against the wall neat the coat rack, took another pull from her bottle and grinned. "It's their little New Year's bet," she said. "Hope you brought popcorn." And then she was laughing and clapping and almost vibrating with joy, eagerness painted across her face like makeup. "I wait all year for this!"

At that point the entire restaurant, my friends and my parents' friends alike, had gathered around to watch the brouhaha, and it felt a bit silly to keep posturing with Yusuke without explanation. I clapped my hands and spun, pasting on my best Circus Ringmaster face and a grin that could put the Ringling Bros. to shame.

"OK, everyone; listen up!" I said "This is the first time we've had an extended gathering and not just the combined Urameshi and Yukimura clans so this is gonna take a little explaining—but every year Yusuke and I have a little competition."

"Can you really call it a competition when I always kick your ass?" Yusuke drawled, slouching into place at my side.

"Inaccurate and also shut up." I let my grin widen, ignoring him. "As all of you know, every New Year's Even they play Kōhaku Uta Gassen on the TV, Red Team vs. White Team. I'm Team Red. Yusuke is that scumbag Team White." (He squawked at the insult; I pressed forward.) "And every year we have a friendly little competition, red vs. white, to see who's gonna kick more ass in the New Year."

"Language!" Mom warbled from the back of the room.

"Friendly?" Atsuko quoted. "Ha! As if! Yusuke gave you a black eye when you were ten over a game of fukuwarai!"

I rounded on her and pointed a finger in her face "That was an illegal elbow and you know I should've been given the point for that event, dammit!"

"Language!" came the call again, though this time Dad said it.

I composed myself. "Ahem. Anyway. Our teams get a point every time the TV teams get a point. But since relying on the TV teams would be more about dumb luck than skill—"

"And since Keiko is a crazy-ass control freak," Yusuke said, brightly.

"Shut up!" I smoothed the front of my dress with a cough. "We also compete in a series of traditional New Year's games to make this more about skill, less about chance. By the time the night is over, the points determine who gets the loser's penalty."

Near the back of the crowd, Kuwabara raised his hand into the air, a kid in class trying to get the teacher's attention.

"Yes, Kuwabara?" I said.

"What's the loser's penalty?" he asked.

"I'm so very glad you asked," I said, sweet as peach pie. I hefted the box in my hand high. "The head of the losing team must eat this Habanero hot pepper, seeds and all… and they can't drink any milk for five minutes afterward."

I'd like to think the jewelry box glowed like the suitcase from Pulp Fiction when I held it aloft, the single bright orange pepper lying on its satin pillow emitting its own internal light, but I know that's just fanciful thinking. Still, though: People gasped at the sight of it, and at the back of the room I saw my mom hide her face in her hands. Dad just looked amused, though, laughing into his fist as their friends gave them looks that said, "Holy shit, you let your daughter do this every year?!"

Another hand shot up, this one belonging to Kaito. "You've been doing this since you were ten?" he asked, incredulous.

"Seven, actually," I said.

Kurama didn't stand far enough away for me to miss the epiphany he experienced just then. "That's why you have such a high tolerance for spice," he said.

"Probably so." A wicked grin delivered unto Yusuke. "Although Yusuke's had to eat more peppers than I have overall."

He bristled. "I've only had to eat one more than you, ya old hag!"

I shoved my fingers in my ears. "La la la, I can't hear you over the sound of my historic wins!"

"How many wins has it been?" Junko asked.

"So far it's four wins to three." I lobbed a fist into the air. "Red Team for life, baby!"

Kaito put up his hand again. "Forgive me for being obtuse, but what does this have to do with tonight's party?" he asked, brow alarmingly close to disappearing into his mop of curly hair.

At that I pointed behind him; most of the crowd turned to look, finally understanding the significance of the various games set up around the dining room. "As you can see, I've set up a series of traditional New Year's games—and a bracketed Street Fighter tournament on the Famicon because it's the 20th century, natch."

("So that's where my Famicon went!" Yusuke yelped; everyone ignored him.)

"If you're willing, I was thinking the kids could sort into teams and help Yusuke and I battle it out for true New Year's dominance." As people turned back around, a lick of self-consciousness had my ears burning. I tucked one foot behind my other calf and hesitated. "It's something to do, at least?"

It was Amagi's turn to raise her hand. "We… we don't have to eat the pepper if we're on the losing team, do we?" she said, looking well and truly alarmed.

"Oh, no. Of course not. There's only one pepper, and only the team captain has to fall on the knife." I put a hand over my heart and looked her very solemnly in the eye. "I take my duties as captain very seriously. I promise not to let any of you down, should you be on the illustrious Team Red."

"Heh. I don't." Yusuke crossed his arms and smiled like the devil. "Any of you lackeys let down the team and I'll cram that pepper down your throat myself."

I faux-bopped him on the head; he yowled. "He's kidding," I said, though it was more a threat to him than an assurance to those listening.

People at the front of the crowd shifted, parting as Amanuma squeezed through them. "Hey, Yusuke!" he said, beaming and elated at the prospect of getting to play some games. "So what's the point of this, anyway? Is there a prize or something?"

In unison Yusuke and I said: "Yes. The prize is seeing the other suffer."

Behind us, Atsuko started scream-laughing. Botan sighed and rolled her eyes, rubbing at her temples with her fingers. Yusuke and I grinned at each other, then remembered we were enemies for the night and went back to glaring.

"Basically, I want bragging rights," I said.

"It's a battle for dignity," said Yusuke.

"Not that Yusuke has much of that to lose."

"Hey!"

A few feet away, Eimi, Mich, Junko and Amagi stood in a small knot. "To think, the great Urameshi plays New Year's games and eats peppers like this," Eimi was saying.

"It's not very in line with his image, is it?" Mich said.

"Not really, no." Eimi looked at Yusuke with a small, eager smile. "But I admit, I really want to see him eat that pepper!"

"Me too, and I don't even know the guy," said Junko.

Yusuke seemed to recognize Eimi and Mich for the first time, then, doing an impressive double-take at his classmates. He went bow-legged with fright, arms held akimbo at his sides. "Oh, hell, those two are from school! There goes my rep!" He grabbed the front of my shirt with a snarl. "The hell'd you invite them for, huh?"

"To see you suffer, of course," I said, smile utterly saccharine. Not acknowledging that he had me standing on my tiptoes thanks to his grip on my collar, I turned my bright smile to the room at large. "So. Y'all wanna play a game?"

The kids filtered through the lingering adults toward us. Kurama, Kaito, Kuwabara, Amanuma. Botan, Amagi, Junko, Eimi, Michiko. They looked at each other in turns, consulting the crowd without speaking, then turned back to me and Yusuke.

Kurama gave a small, subtle smile, eyes sparkling with amusement. "Sounds fun."

Kaito pushed his glasses up his nose. "If everyone else is doing it, I suppose I will participate."

"Anything to see Yusuke eat that pepper," said Eimi.

"Yeah; he's going down!" said Michiko.

"I'm gonna be on Keiko's team and I'm gonna make Urameshi eat it! Ha ha!" Kuwabara grinned so hard I feared his face might split. "This is gonna be good!"

"Count me in!" Amanuma chirped. "If it's games, I kick butt every time!"

"I'm not very good at games," Amagi said, fidgeting, "but I'll try my best."

"There's no way I'm passing up a chance to watch this dumpster fire," Junko added with a smile.

"And I'm sure a certain friend of ours" (a subtle point skyward, to Spirit World) "will love to hear all about this!" said Botan. "So count me very much in."

There came a crunch from behind me. I have no idea where Atsuko had gotten popcorn from, but she held a bag of it in her arm and happily munched on the kernels, swigging from her liquor bottle after every bite. "This is gonna be good," she said. "Kick my son's ass, Keiko!"

"Excellent." I rubbed my hands together. "Now let the games begin."


In the spirit of fairness (and because even if Yusuke didn't know Amanuma's destined Territory, he still knew the kid was killer at games) we assembled our teams through the drawing of lots.

Team White, captained by Yusuke, consisted of Kuwabara, Junko, Kurama… and Amanuma.

Which left Team Red, captained by yours truly, with Michiko, Eimi, Amagi, Botan, and Kaito.

The gender ratio was fitting, for the most part. Red Team on TV was always all women, and White Team all men. We weren't totally gender-segregated, but still. The coincidence of the team makeup would've made me laugh if it hadn't been so utterly alarming.

Botan was the last person left in the hat when we drew names, and since there was an odd number of players, we decided she'd be on my team and give me more members overall—mainly because Yusuke had already drawn both Kurama and Amanuma, which we all knew was stacking the deck in his favor to begin with. I had Kaito, sure, who'd be my anchor in the Street Fighter tournament (literally none of the girls liked that game besides me and Junko) but knowing Yusuke had both Amanuma and Kurama on his team did not bode well for the safety of my taste buds later.

"OK, everybody," I said after we drew the lots and assembled our teams. "I'm counting on you for a win tonight. I caught a whiff of the pepper early and I think it's a banner year for capsaicin." Not an exaggeration; I'd kept the pepper box shut tight ever since. Swallowing, I looked each team member dead in the eye and said (or maybe pleaded), "Don't let me down."

"Heh." Kaito adjusted his lapels. "You needn't worry, Yukimura. What I lack in experience, I will make up in pure strategy."

"Good." I pointed at him. "You're team strategist. Let's bring home the win." I stuck out my hand. "Red Team?"

They layered their hands atop mine. "Red Team!" we chorused, and we tossed our hands into the air.

As soon as we finished, I found Kuwabara at my elbow. He had looked more than a little heartbroken to be on Team White, still sporting an expression befitting a mopey zoo lion. "Keiko, I'm so, so sorry," he said, but I just grinned.

"You better not go easy on me, White Team trash," I said, but with a wink that got Kuwabara to laugh. Hopefully he wouldn't pull a Minato and throw matches just to help me win, much though I wanted to avoid the pepper penalty.

Atsuko gleefully kept track of our points on a whiteboard, laughing her head off as we began playing the traditional New Year's games of old Japan: fukuwarai, like pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey but with facial features on a large paper oni mask; hanetsuki, a game a bit like badminton that involved keeping a shuttlecock aloft in the air with small racquets; and sugoroku, an antique board game that reminded me a whole lot of Snakes n' Ladders. Amanuma swiftly proved himself the best gamer of the lot, at everything from Street Fighter to hanetsuki, prompting awed exclamations from kids and adults alike. Points floated in as the Show's competitors accrued them as well, our real-life scores inflating at odd intervals and out of our control. It added an element of chaos to the festivities, necessitating keeping careful eye on the TV as well as the games we played. No one player could play multiple games in a row, which called for strategizing as we laughed our heads off and tried to finagle good matchups that wouldn't see us get beaten into the dirt. My parents' friends watched us goof off at times, but for the most part they ignored us and talked amongst themselves with little cups of sake in their hands.

The best part of the whole thing was that the games kept us so distracted, we didn't have much time for actual conversation—meaning no one had the opportunity to spill supernatural secrets to those not already aware of them, and soon my more serious friends (cough cough, Kurama) loosened up and played along with the best of them.

When everyone seemed sufficiently distracted, too busy watching a spirited game of sugoroku between Kaito and Kuwabara to notice, I caught Yusuke's eye. He lifted a brow. I jerked my head toward the kitchen. He set down the plate of food he'd been picking at, said something to no one about needing more ozōni, and walked off with a tune whistled innocently between his teeth.

I followed, one eye cast carefully over my shoulder to check for eavesdroppers, but no one dogged my steps.

Like a secret agent meeting an informant in an old-fashioned cartoon, Yusuke and I played it so cool as to push the point of ridiculousness. He leaned against the island in the kitchen and rifled through a drawer, as if looking for something, while I opened the refrigerator and poked through it—for nothing, of course, but it was the act that counted.

"Hey," I muttered to the floor.

"Hi," Yusuke said to the ceiling.

I put my hands in a T shape, holding it just far enough to the side so he could see. "Truce for two seconds, White scum?"

He made the T, too. "Agreed, Red Team filth."

"Sweet." I cut my eyes toward the door. No one lingered in it; we were safe, our clandestine meeting still secret. "You get the goods?" I asked under my breath.

"I did," Yusuke replied under his.

"Enough for all?"

"What do you think I am, a chump?" He bared his teeth. "Think your little gal pals will rat us out?"

He meant Eimi and Michiko, I deduced, but he needn't have worried. To a container of Brussel sprouts in the fridge I said: "Nah. Not if we get Minamino to go along with it. They're smitten."

"Oh-ho. I see. Use pretty boy as bait." He favored his fingernails with a grin. "So how do you wanna play this?"

"I mean. Same way we normally do? Just sneak off one by one when the adults aren't looking?"

He nodded. "I'll grab my team, you grab yours?"

"Twenty minutes beforehand?"

"Roger that."

I dramatically undid my truce-hands, holding them up like a criminal after dropping a weapon. Yusuke did the same, smile anything but friendly as I flipped him a peace sign and said, "Now get out of here, White detritus."

"I don't know what that word means but I'm assuming it was insulting, you big barf bucket," he deadpanned, and he headed for the dining room.

"Yusuke. Wait."

He turned, one hand braced on the door frame, looking at me over his shoulder with eyebrow hiked. I hesitated, but when Yusuke's eyebrow hitched a little higher, and clear 'what the heck do you want?' on his face, I took a deep breath.

"You OK with this?" I asked.

"Huh?" he said, head pulling back a little in confusion.

"You OK with bringing people in on this tradition of ours?" I said. "It's been just us for so many years. I wanted to check in, see if you were…"

I trailed off, self-conscious enough to start fiddling with the hem of my skirt. Yusuke stared at me a sec before swiping his thumb beneath his nose, a small, sly smile playing across his lips.

"Y'know," he said. "I thought about it—and if I get hit by another car, I really don't want you eating a pepper alone in your room again, ya feel me?"

I winced, cheeks flushing as if I'd bitten into a habanero. "Dad told you about that?"

"Course he did," Yusuke grunted. "Told me he'd kill me all over again if I went and died a second time, too, and left you alone for another New Year. So, nah." He shrugged, smile a little less sly this time, a little more sincere. "I'm OK. It's good we've got more friends, even if they're annoying like Kuwabara." And at that he turned away, lifting a hand over his shoulder as he walked away. "Just leave a tradition or two for me, yeah?"

"Yeah, Yusuke," I said to his retreating back. "Sure thing."

As I watched him walk away and rejoin the party, I resolved to spike Dad's dinner with a bit too much pepper next time I got the chance—payback for ratting me out to Yusuke. I had indeed suffered through eating a habanero in his honor the previous New Year's in his absence, but I certainly hadn't thought he'd ever find out. Talk about embarrassing… but now was not the time to dwell on that. I had another clandestine meeting to attend to, and since I was already in the kitchen, now seemed like a great time to get it done.

Earlier in the day I'd set aside a bit of food and packed it up in a few separate bento boxes squirreled away in the back of the fridge, hidden behind a jug or two of juice and a big crate of eggs. I filled a bowl from the big ozōnipot in the kitchen and balanced it atop the boxes, carrying it all as quietly and quickly as I could out of the kitchen and the back door of the restaurant. Nobody saw me; hiding a triumphant smile, I set the food on a spare vegetable crate and looked at the orange-tinted stripe of sky peeping between the roofs looming above the alley. Tried not to shiver too hard as the wind filled the alley to bursting with its insistent cold, though that was a fool's errand. I'd left my coat by the front door and hadn't wanted to chance running to get it.

"H-Hiei?" I said through chattering teeth.

In an instant there came a whump from behind me, a warm wind brushing over the back of my neck. "Meigo," came his grumpy voice, and when I turned I found him standing behind me in his customary black cloak and white scarf. Scarlet eyes glimmered, reflecting the glow of the light above the door like an animal's in the dark. Almost at once the temperature of the alley rose a few degrees; my shivers stopped, muscles relaxing as the cold abated in the wake of Hiei's presence.

"Hey," I said. "You came, after all."

Hiei grunted an affirmative. Hands emerged from his pocket. Between two of his fingers he held a pale blue card—the party invitation I'd given him weeks prior. It was too dark to see, but I knew that if I looked close I'd find a handwritten message across the back in my penmanship. He'd stared at the invitation when I'd offered it with obvious distaste, clearly even less accustomed than Kaito to receiving party invites.

"You don't have to decide right now," I'd told him, shoving the paper at his chest. "Just give it some thought."

"Whatever," he'd said, rolling his eyes, and he'd shoved the card into his cloak and out of sight.

Of course, that had happened weeks prior, and I hadn't been sure if he'd show up to the party or not. I'd scrawled "you don't have to come inside, just stop by" on the back, wondering if that might help him feel comfortable enough to at least stop by and see me. Parties just weren't Hiei's scene—but food generally got Hiei's attention, and apparently the lure of something good to eat had succeeded in drawing him in tonight.

Sure enough, Hiei said, "You promised me food, didn't you?"

"That I did," I said, nodding. "But still. It's good to see you." I pointed at the door. "Don't suppose you wanna come in?"

Hiei didn't bother saying anything; he glared and marched past to scoop up the bento and soup bowl (which I would likely never see again, another bowl lost to Hiei's sticky fingers; I added it to my mental tally).

"Yeah. Didn't think so," I said, and I sat down to watch Hiei eat.

Well, more like to talk him through eating. Some of these special New Year's foods he'd never seen before. We took a tour of the bento together, in which I rattled off a description of each kind of food as Hiei picked it up and gave it a sniff. Some bits he ate with gusto; others he nibbled, made a face at, and set aside with extreme prejudice. I made more mental notes about everything he did and did not like to write down later.

"You usually celebrate the New Year, Hiei?" I asked after he polished off the bento and started on the steaming ozōni.

"What for?" he asked, taking a huge slurp of broth. "Inane human tradition."

"At least the food's good?"

"It's decent."

"High praise from you." I braced my hands on my knees and pushed, standing with a sigh. "Well. I've got people inside and should be getting back. Feel free to come in if you want—though you might want to raid my closet, borrow some of Yusuke's things first." I eyed his outfit. "That cloak stands out."

"Harrumph," Hiei articulated—and as I turned toward the door to go, I remembered something.

"Oh. Did you know my mom knows about you?" I threw up my hands, glad to share this surprise with someone. "Weird, right? I have no idea how she found out!"

But Hiei just shrugged. "She spied on us from your window once."

"She what?!" My mouth fell open. "What—but—I mean—" I stammered a few more times before finding my word again. "But you didn't say anything, Hiei!"

Yet again, he shrugged. "Didn't see a need. I read her thoughts. She thinks I'm another—what was it? Another 'neighborhood stray' you've picked up?" He slashed his soup with his spoon, teeth bared and grit. "It was undignified."

"So you kept it a secret?" I said, incensed, but Hiei didn't look even a little ashamed of himself. I pinched the bridge of my nose and shook my head. "Right. Well, the offer to come in stands. Mom knows you exist, so you might as well meet her, but it's whatever." Once more I turned to leave, and once more I thought of something else to say. "Oh—and we're gonna be out here later, me and the rest of the kids, if you want to join."

He paused, spoon halfway to his mouth. "In the alley?"

"Sort of," I said, hedging. "Just be subtle if you join us. No sense scaring the normies."

"Hmmph." He went back to eating. "Humans and their delicate nerves."

I giggled, because it was hard not to, but soon I sobered. Hands in my pockets, one loosely curled around the pepper box, I said, "Hey, Hiei?"

I'd interrupted another bite; he growled, spoon splashing back down into the soup. "What?" he said, exasperated.

"I'm glad we met this year. And I'm looking forward to another year with you in it."

Hiei didn't respond right away. In fact, his only reaction came in the form of widened eyes and frozen posture, hands loose around the bowl he balanced on his lap. We held our gaze for a moment that stretched into, two, then three. Soon Hiei blinked and cast his eyes down to the alley's dirty concrete ground.

"What are you babbling about?" he said, not looking at me.

I cracked a crooked grin. "Just another inane human tradition—a New Year's toast. Hope you don't mind." This time, I didn't think of anything else to say as I grasped the door handle and pushed my way back inside. "See you next year, Hiei, if you don't join us later."

I thought he wouldn't answer me. Honestly, I didn't really need him to do so.

Just as the door fell shut, however, I heard him softly say, "See you next year, Meigo"—and it was the best New Year's toast from him I could ask for.


Atsuko was lying in wait when I came back—but not because she's been eavesdropping on me and Hiei. No, as soon as I walked in the door from the outside, she dragged me into the kitchen for an entirely different reason. "Who is he?" she said in my ear, and she pointed into the dining room with the end of a burning cigarette.

I followed her point with my eyes. Saw who she meant. Turned back to her.

"That," I said, "would be Kuwabara senior."

Kuwabara's father, still clad in his long black coat but sans his outdoor shoes, stood with my parents and his daughter over by the buffet table, wearing a winning grin as he threw back his head and gave a deep, sonorous laugh. At centimeters tall (that's 6'4 for the Americans reading my diary), he absolutely towered over everyone in the room and was as broad-shouldered as a linebacker. Immediately obvious where Kuwabara got his build as well as his blocky jaw and his incredible cheekbones (Kuwabara had growing to do yet, both into his height and into his severe features). That's where the resemblance between father and son ended, however, because Kuwabara-san wore his black hair in a short ponytail and sported a glimmering diamond in each ear—punk-rock even as an adult, looking the littlest bit Yakuza with ring-covered fingers and a flashy gold watch on his wrist. Tinted eyeglasses obscured his expression just enough to be intimidating, and since the rest of him was already intimidating enough as it was, the air he gave off was that of a casual ne'er do well, the kind of man who didn't give a crap what anyone thought of him and would sooner beat your ass as look at you.

But then he said something funny. My parents burst out laughing, and Kuwabara-san's smile softened his hard features into something warm, inviting—and, yeah. Handsome, actually. I'd met Kuwabara's dad a handful of times and had gotten the impression of a man who traded in laid-back humor and calm action, temperament brilliantly contrasting his appearance much the way his son's did.

Atsuko, however, only had eyes for his face—and for hers. She grabbed a soup spoon off the kitchen counter and held it up, smoothing down her eyebrow with a fingertip.

"How do I look?" she said.

"Uh," I said. "Fine. Why do you—?"

Atsuko put down the spoon. She put down her cigarette and beer bottle. She very, very pointedly unbuttoned the first few buttons of her blouse and adjusted her boobs, thrusting out her chest and mussing her hair into alluring bed-head.

"Atsuko," I said, suddenly numb inside. "Atsuko, what are you doing?"

She flipped her hair and checked her teeth in the soup spoon. "I want to make a good impression, don't I?"

"That," I said, voice climbing high and shrill, "is Kuwabara's dad."

"Yes," she said with faux patience. "And as I recall, Kuwabara's mom passed away many years ago. Which means Kuwabara-san is the grieving widower, and I..."

She looked down at her boobs. She waggled her eyebrows.

"Atsuko," I said. "Atsuko, no."

"Atsuko yes," she countered, and with a sway in her hips and a pout on her lips she sauntered out of the kitchen and straight toward Kuwabara's dad.

Shizuru broke away from her father at about the same time. Atsuko and Shizuru passed each other on their respective trips across the restaurant, trading a nod as they neared one another, but Atsuko had her eyes on a prize and didn't stop to chat. Shizuru paused, turning in place to watch Atsuko approach her father, and then with a raised brow she resumed her walk toward me.

"Where's she off to in such a hurry?" Shizuru said as she entered the kitchen.

"To seduce your father, apparently."

I clapped my hand over my mouth as soon as I finished speaking, but Shizuru didn't even blink. She just reached into her pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, holding one unlit between her smirking lips.

"Well," she said, leaning against the kitchen island. Together we watched as Atsuko introduced herself, fluttering her eyelashes up at Kuwabara senior. "This should certainly be entertaining."

I stared at her. "You're not mad?"

"Nah." She shrugged. "She's not his type, and he can handle himself." For some reason her lips curled around her cigarette. "You know, Red Team is down a few points."

The abrupt change had me gaping like a beached fish for a second, but then her meaning hit me like a boxing glove to the face. I cursed and lurched against the door frame, hands braced on either side of it, staring at the scoreboard over near the gaming area. Botan had taken up scorekeeper duties, marking down points as they came in, and to my horror the red half of the board had three fewer points than the white half—meaning my mouth was on the line and the habanero hovered like the sword of Damocles about my head. I'd totally lost track of the games while dealing with Hiei and Yusuke, dammit! It was time to get back out there, fix this mess, make sure Yusuke would eat that fucking pepper and—

"Like I said: I'm not worried," Shizuru said. She crossed her arms over her chest, confident and indolent. "But you know who's gonna be?"

I pulled my head back into the kitchen and looked at her. "Hmm?"

And she nodded—she nodded out into the dining room.

She nodded toward where the White Team had gathered in a huddle.

Specifically to where Yusuke and Kuwabara stood talking to Amanuma, with their backs to their parents, completely unaware of the inter-family hell brewing by the buffet table.

I stared at them.

I blinked.

I giggled.

I giggled again.

The laughter built like magma beneath the crust of a volcano, evil and thick, shoulders bouncing in time with my muffled mirth until I couldn't contain it any longer. It poured from my mouth as I threw back my head, fingers arching into claws as I cackled my glee at the kitchen ceiling. Shizuru watched without saying a damn word, utterly impassive as she mouthed at her unlit cigarette—but as my "mwa ha ha-ing" came to an end, leaving me standing there with a devious gleam in my eye and a scheming chuckle on my lips, she spoke.

"So. Tell me," she said. "How frazzled do you think those two would get at the prospect of becoming stepbrothers?"

I rubbed my hands together, certain I'd sprouted horns. "This is great," I simpered. "No. This is wonderful."

Shizuru's mouth quirked. "Something tells me Yusuke's gonna be the one eating the pepper if you play this little distraction right."

"Shizuru, anyone ever tell you you're an evil genius?"

"I get that a lot." She lifted a foot, kicking lightly at my hip. "Now show me some fireworks, kid."

"Hey. It's New Year's Eve." I paused in the doorway, tossing my hair and its ridiculous ribbon with a grin the devil would envy. Over my shoulder I winked, and I said to her, "Fireworks are all part of the show."

And with that, I marched off to do battle with the enemy—the enemy who had no idea what storm was coming, and what horrendous hell I intended to unleash on this chilly New Year's Eve.

"Mwa ha ha," indeed.


NOTES:

*Smiling devil emoji here. Also, longest chapter yet.

IDK if the manga ever said what's up with Kuwabara's mom, but in the late chapters it showed us Kuwabara's dad. Scans of him are on my Tumblr account. For LC purposes we're saying Kuwabara's mom passed when he was a kid (he's mentioned this once before, but it was a long time ago).

The "Atsuko no/Atsuko yes" bit really shows how Yusuke takes after his mom, methinks…

Three bits of housekeeping:

The EU just passed Articles 11 and 13, which might hinder European readers' abilities to read this fic, as those articles affect sites' abilities to host fanworks and other copywritten content. I will be creating an email list; if the EU's ruling ends up affecting you, I can add you to it and email chapters directly to you. Send me your email via review or PM (or via Tumblr) and we'll work it out.

I'm going on hiatus in July, as mentioned a few weeks back, for Camp NaNoWriMo. Next week (ch 75) will be the last chapter before I go on hiatus. Just some forewarning.

I have three short omake side-bits planned that go along with these New Year's Eve party chapters; they'll be added to "Children of Misfortune" in the coming weeks, probably once I go on hiatus. One includes Keiko eating a pepper while Yusuke is comatose in honor of their unsung New Year's tradition (something this chapter alludes to). I also have some short humor bits planned to tide over everyone while I'm on hiatus, as well, once again intended as "Children of Misfortune" side-stories.

Thanks to all those who reviewed chapter 73. You rocked my socks: Melissa Fairy, xenocanaan, CitylightsinNYC, Kaiya Azure, zubhanwc3, Blaze1662001, wennifer-lynn, EdenMae, yofa, NightlyKill, rya-fire1, MissIdeophobia, ForeverInWonderland, Selias, ahyeon, DiCuora Alissa, Kirie Mitsuru, Marian, C S Stars, GuestStarringAs, sweetfoxgirl13, Lady Ellesmere, shen0, Laina Inverse, Khaleesi Renee, xIsntItFunnyx, WaYaADisi1, o-dragon, read a rainbow, SlytherclawQueen, FangirlNikora, Dark Rose Charm, snkannie, Tsuki-Lolita, RedPanda923, KannaKyomu, Biku-sensei-sez-meow, general zargon, kykygrly and eight guests!