007|1 terms of service
"Keiko can't remember where she got this?" Kurama questioned. The omamori in question lay innocently between them on the coffee table. Despite its earlier display, the fabric was still intact as if it hadn't just flung a demon three times Yusuke's size across a distance like some hyped taser.
Yusuke leaned back, flicking his sopping fingers outwards to dispel the remaining aloe; his arms and face were coated in slimy green. Dead skin flaked off with the motion in globules that flecked the surface of Kurama's coffee table and leather sofa.
Kurama made a surreptitious wipe of the coffee table – at least Yusuke had the thought to place a coaster down. Caveman manners, but still manners.
"I mean, she says she was probably with me when she got it, but, honestly, Kurama, we've been to so many I barely remember any of them."
The redhead made a considering sound, hand hovering above the pouch. "That is a problem."
Narrowing his eyes, Kurama concentrated as he willed his youki to the surface. Yusuke opened one eye, the energy in the room swirling to concentrate around the man. It wasn't anywhere near as impressive as Kurama's battle aura, but it made the tips of Yusuke's own fingers tingle.
At first, it seemed like nothing was happening.
From an outsider's perspective, it might have been comical to see such a look of serious scrutiny on Kurama's face, his hand poised like a magician waiting to time his trick. The only sound that filled the room was the ticking of the sleek, modern clock hanging above the sofa. (Which, by the way, doesn't even have numbers so to hell with that, Kurama, Yusuke thought.)
…There!
It happened quickly, in tendrils. The same arc of pink light that he'd seen before rising like bottled lightning from the surface of the yellow fabric.
Yusuke had seen Kurama ripped and sliced to near shreds on more than one occasion and it never failed to impress him – and, seriously, privately, wig him the fuck out – that the fox-turned-man could take it all with hardly a flinch. The zap was no exception as Kurama merely sucked in a small breath between his teeth.
The only sign that it must have hurt as much as it looked like it had was the sudden spider-web of burn marks flaring out from the center of Kurama's palm, curling upwards until they faded near the top of his hand.
Yusuke hissed, pulling back.
Kurama lifted his hand up, examining the surface with a clinical eye. In seconds, blood was welling up in small droplets along the lines—the skin stung as much as any laceration. It was so quiet Yusuke could hear the moment a few, singular drops splashed across the top of the table; little plinks like tears, though Kurama's eyes remained entirely dry.
"Shit," Yusuke breathed, scrubbing a hand across his face. "Who knows how many Keiko has—should I be worried?"
Standing, Kurama headed towards the kitchen. Yusuke's ears picked up the sound of running water splashing against a stainless steel basin.
"No, Yusuke, I don't think so," the redhead said as he appeared again. He wiped his hands on a kitchen towel, thoughtfully turning his palm over. "If anything, it might be in her best interest to keep one on her."
Yusuke made a questioning sound, to which the fox responded with a rueful smile.
"It did exactly as it was supposed to do."
007|2 vice
"Hey," Yusuke said, clasping a hand over the redhead's shoulder. "You sure you don't mind doing this?"
Kurama looked over his shoulder, taking in the other man. A few days of constant watering and a strict regiment of aloe slathered across his body at odd hours, per Kurama's orders, had transformed Yusuke's appearance from post-apocalyptic survivor to something resembling a young person returning from a sunny holiday having forgotten their sunscreen. The awful winter ensemble had yet to be ditched, much to the fox's chagrin.
It wasn't accurate to call it a smile, those were rare and few when it came to Kurama, but the corners of his mouth turned upwards in a familiar expression of humor—to Yusuke, it sometimes felt like Kurama was looking back to indulge the consultant, several steps ahead on the board game while Yusuke was still figuring out the rules.
(Or, sometimes, Yusuke mused, while I'm getting out of jail or sitting on my ass on property I can't sell. One-on-one street brawls and speed racing were more Yusuke's style anyway—more risk for a bigger boom.)
"I wouldn't be here if it inconvenienced me, Yusuke. Besides, I admit I'm rather curious myself." Kurama's long strides barely faltered as he slipped his card through the gate, tucking it back into his jacket once it was punched. Yusuke muttered, fumbling with his wallet as he crammed his own afterwards into the slot, following along hurriedly as workers and tourists scuttled about the station in orderly disarray.
They stopped along a wall of free magazines and guides. Kurama gestured and Yusuke took the hint, eyes scanning the racks for all the familiar ones he could remember—those he grabbed, and a few that looked promising, despite the English letters on their front, for good measure.
"Well, by all means," Yusuke said, waving the pamphlets in his hand loosely. "Have at 'em."
Kurama rifled through the stack, eyebrows raised. "She has been prolific. I've been meaning to visit some of these myself."
Yusuke rolled his eyes good-naturedly, shooting the fox a fond look. "You're so old."
A few years difference between them meant Kurama had started university before the rest of them—he knew Yusuke's regular stream of pokes had nothing to do with his physical age and more to do with his mannerisms. The former detective had always found them responsible, mature, and, well, old.
Funny, though, that Kurama hadn't been the one to lead a team to various victories or make life-altering decisions that would have aged any mortal in decades. Yusuke's contradictory nature fell in line with his persistent tendencies to juggle the desire and rejection of being pulled in either direction.
"You'll have to stop resisting at some point and join the rest of us, Yusuke," the redhead teased, summer ivy eyes flicking up from beneath half-lids as he shuffled the pamphlets by location—closest in distance at the forefront, the rest in the back. "Maybe this will be the decade we get some culture in you."
"Ugh, cultured my ass—" Yusuke had the decency to look shamefaced as an elderly couple walked by, shooting him a dirty look. He waited for them to round the corner. "I'd rather be eating that yoghurt that helps you take a dump than do a tour de shrine."
It never failed to be entertaining: having a first row seat to humor powered by Yusuke's own internal logic. Brows furrowing, mouth twisting to mirror the same fondness Yusuke had for him, Kurama regarded the consultant. "Was there a pun in there somewhere?"
Scoffing, but doing nothing to hide the shit-eating grin on his face, Yusuke jerked his head towards the kiosk in the middle of the underground mall.
"Lemme grab a snack and some more research."
Kurama nodded, following along. He deftly sidestepped giggling schoolgirls and the occasional stranger who slowed to look at him, nearly three decades of experience allowing him to go unfazed and untouched. By now, lingering looks, both subtle and blatant, had all the weight of mist—he noticed, catalogued, assessed, but it'd been years since the othering had any chance of impact.
Yusuke wove in front of him, his shoulders knocking into random strangers, while his shoes scuffed along the tiles. In his steps, there was some semblance of grace imbued by Genkai and years as a seasoned fighter, but it was hidden the way geodes were deceptive; their value imperceptible at an outward glance. People actively sidestepped and parted for Yusuke, and yet he still managed to graze and touch someone every other second.
Not for the first time, the redhead took a moment to regard the man in front of him with no small amount of envy. Yusuke walked among the people in every physical and tactile way possible, every semblance of mortal, something Kurama found he couldn't do, or, rather, bring himself to do.
The redhead hummed thoughtfully, waiting beside the queue while Yusuke examined the kiosk's wares. "Maybe we should work backwards, from the most recent ones to the oldest. Did Keiko go to any of these alone?"
"Sometimes, yeah. It's been her thing. I don't know, but I think it makes her feel like she's keeping me safe or something—like, pulling strings from as many places as she can."
It was a startling insightful thought that had Kurama's eyebrows lifting.
Dipping his head at the stack of shiny magazines and guides by the kiosk worker's elbow, Yusuke reached into his back pocket for his wallet. A folded bill between fingers interrupted Yusuke's sight and stopped him from dropping the money into the plastic collection tray. Kurama flashed a thin smile at the worker.
"I've got this, Yusuke. You're letting me tag along after all."
Raising a brow but shrugging, Yusuke backed off, hands in the air. Go ahead, you do what you want. He jerked his head towards a pole, a few meters away, already ambling towards it.
With Yusuke's back to him, Kurama gestured subtly to the line of cartons behind the worker. "One as well. Thank you."
007|3 long game
It didn't cross Yusuke's mind, though it certainly crossed Kurama's, that he looked like a questionable, though friendly, tramp in his out-of-season coat and hat that did nothing to hide his riot of freckles, a less than common sight among the general populace. If anything, it most likely cemented in the worker's mind that Kurama was a Good Samaritan indulging in a charitable act with a lost tourist.
With the sizable stack and their dwindling daylight, Kurama considered the red torii on the glossy front of the first magazine. "Meiji seems almost too obvious, doesn't it?"
Yusuke's head bobbed as he checked the various connections on display; given the limited time they had, they could only spare one trip out before he would have to head home. Not even bothering to use both hands, he lifted one of the three packaged bars he'd grabbed from the kiosk to his mouth—teeth tearing into the corner easily.
"Yeah, that one's pretty hard to miss. Probably the first one we went to?" He looked back at Kurama, and suddenly it was impossible not to see the boyish charm underneath the hard shell of hair gel. The freckles had knocked five years off him, easily, and the brightly colored snack that barely constituted as real food did a number. "You ever went to that one as a kid, Kurama?"
"Yes, my mother took me a number of times when we would visit extended family," Kurama responded, foot back in the past for a moment. "We went there before the results of my entrance exam were out."
"University?"
"High school," he corrected. "My younger brother and I posed for pictures. She likely has it in an album somewhere." Two young boys, one holding up the obligatory peace sign while the other stood stoic in front of the sake barrels. His hair had been cropped short back then, his mother's well-meaning attempts at keeping anyone from teasing him before he'd calmly told her he didn't care what others thought.
(It was hard to care when a several centuries-year old kitsune spirit was housed inside you and had significant, if not parasitic, influence over your psyche.)
Yusuke hummed, tipping his head up as he considered the image. The last of the rice cracker he'd held between his teeth disappeared into his mouth, the wrapper deftly plucked to disappear in his fist. "I went once before middle school."
"Ah." Kurama flicked his wrist, the linen cuff moving to show the current time on the leather band. He flipped through the stack once more, settling for a smaller, less prominent location. Close, convenient, a good lead to settle for with what they had. Tapping the glossy front as a sign to move, Kurama absently asked, "A school trip, then?"
"No, just a family day. I was small enough my dad had to carry me on his shoulders," Yusuke answered, kicking off the wall and heading towards the steps. He stuffed the wrapper in the backpocket of his jeans, jerking his head towards the stairs. "We'll want the line over here, right?"
To his credit, Kurama only faltered for half a second, curiosity immediately piqued, before nodding in confirmation. The dark haired man continued on, taking the steps two at a time while the fox followed.
Considering his skill in acquiring all manners of things—information or material goods—it was remarkably impressive how little Kurama knew about this part of Yusuke's life. Yusuke rarely spoke about the other biological contributor that had made him, Atsuko in a category of her own, and it'd be a lie to say Kurama wasn't curious. One could have argued it was in his nature, but it might have been curiosity sparked only for the distinct lack of knowledge he had in the entire matter.
He tamped down the desire to ask further, despite the five, ten (twenty) subtly leading questions he'd already started to spin as he stared at the back of Yusuke's head.
His demonic predecessor might have pursued it to an end, quickly and voraciously, but two lives lived also gave to reason.
Some things simply required the element of time, their acquisition made all the better by it.
He could appease the spirit inside of him knowing some complexities demanded a long game.
And though the boundaries that defined his humanity and, subsequently, his human persona Shuichi became less and less as Kurama existed more and more as an amalgam these days, what was there gently offered another point: right now what friendship he had with Yusuke had more value than knowing the intimacies of Yusuke for the sake of knowing.
007|4 traveler's charm
"Ah," Yusuke said, cocking his head, "I hear it coming."
With little fanfare, which was to say absolutely none, the right line did arrive as scheduled and both Kurama and Yusuke waited for the flow of passengers to exit before making their way on. It was a nearly silent affair, but well coordinated.
Here is the rare moment, Kurama humored, Yusuke and I are as ordinary as everyone else, for once. It was comforting: their bodies moving by muscle memory, not for katas or spirit weapons, but for the shared cultural hegemony that was public transit; the same as the young woman or the elderly man entering with them.
Travel time meant a brief grace period to process. Things certainly had become slow if this was the most intriguing thing to have happened in weeks, months—on a potentially wild chase with Yusuke as a partner, no less, with no hint of reward or boon except to sate his curiosity.
At first, Kurama's singular grain of compassion was purely for his human mother, but the past ten years had slowly found him amassing more grains until a small territory worthy of being defended had formed—comprised of people he saw as not just a means to an end but truly significant. Shiori and his younger brother Shuichi, Yusuke, Hiei, Kazuma, and a few others… An admittedly small pool, but it was more than zero, where it'd been before.
By association, concern for them meant having to extend some amount of regard to their people, though to the fox that was simply a part of strategy. In the modern age and human world, a thief had to evolve; material wealth had been traded for other things, as far as vices go.
It all tended toward his vein of self-serving greed; what was his needed looking after and this was all part of that maintenance, the same treatment he would have given his plants.
How novel it was for Yoko Kurama, in this incarnation, to care for humans of all things!
He'd spent so many years rejecting humans; seeing them less than, all the while trapped in a vessel made from the same sinews and bones as them but not at all like them. It'd taken him countless more moments to realize he had common ground with humans—was one of them, to an extent.
(And, truthfully, Kurama would be the first to admit, these days 'to what extent' would take years to debate and determine. Where Shuichi, Kurama, and Yoko Kurama seemed to exist was its own compendium of philosophical and spiritual bastardy, leading Kurama to, temporarily, accept the Urameshi school of existential thought: "fuck it.")
How would any of these people react knowing a demon was right beside them?
Not for the first time, Kurama absently wondered this, as the floor beneath him shifted and rumbled, his body leaning and bracing itself as metal traveled along rails in the dark. Two demons, even, if Yusuke were to count. Or, maybe, if neither of them fully counted, two imaginary numbers that depended on the probability of imminent danger and a toddler with a pacifier and too much power.
As many were on their way home, while many more were commuting for the start of the evening shift, a steady stream of bodies had divided the two men. Yusuke at one end by the doors, Kurama taking the other set at the opposite.
It should have been inconvenient not to discuss their next steps but considering the unique nature for their excursion in the first place, continuing discussion while in proximity to others was unwise—if not a little impolite, considering how many regularly, Kurama included, liked traveling in relative silence.
The redhead made it a point to look out towards the windows, having learned in the past that staring into the distance while faced towards anyone would sometimes garner unwanted attention. Too many potential marriage proposals had been concocted from moments sprung from accidentally catching a stranger's eyes for too long.
Yusuke, on the other hand, seemed to take no problem with facing the other bodies in the space. His lack of regard for hiding his wandering, observing eyes was its own blanket anonymity—Yusuke didn't actually care that much about what or who he was looking at, no one was too above or below him to garner a cursory glance. Its boldness was defiance in the face of social etiquette. And, yet, Yusuke's lack of duplicity was refreshing.
Rather than politely ignoring or looking away, the dark haired man's complete comfort in his own body and how it inhabited the space around him, not for the comfort or influence of others, was its own form of strength.
It made Kurama relax fractionally—his guard was still up, it always would be when surrounded by others, but at least he wasn't alone.
From the speakers, the voice announced with crisp clarity that they would be arriving shortly. Yusuke looked away from the young man his eyes had idled on, dark brown eyes sweeping away to catch Kurama's eye. Kurama nodded, the corners of his mouth tightening. The corner of Yusuke's own mouth lifted in response, a crooked smile silently communicating what they both thought:
The investigation was on.
four segments! a confession: I tend to update on snow days and days where I have to stay indoors, since I can put off work for a little bit to do fan work. wish for more polar vortexes and bad storms if you want more, then, I suppose! entirely by coincidence, as I was logging in to post this I saw that forthright's Affinity also just updated and so I'm going to scuttlebutt over and read that right after I finish posting this. excite!
since this takes place in the 90s/early 2000s, the current easy swipe system used for Japan's transit system wouldn't be available, let alone universal – hence pre-paid cards with magnetic chips for punching. originally I, no joke, wrote a five paragraph essay on the entire subject but deleted it all bc I realized no one would care to read that author's note.
this fic remains self-indulgent and more interested in character study and character-driven conflict, alongside an excuse to write out some longstanding headcanons. don't be fooled by the fact that our characters need a means to get to each other! the events in the story are a means to achieve this. to be upfront: if you are looking for a fast-paced narrative that heavily banks on a quest or singular plot, this won't be it. shrug. 1-11-19.