He heard the scrabbling up the rocks behind him before the king's voice, boisterous as always, reached his ears.

"Yo, Hokushin!"

"Mm?" He started to turn before a "Stop!" halted him mid-motion.

"Close your eyes. I got something for ya."

Dutifully he closed his eyes. Dealing with the king was sometimes like dealing with a small, easily excited child. Not that he always minded. He put out his hand.

Something small, cool, and round dropped into his palm. He dipped his hand slightly, catching and rolling a pearl-like item between his fingers. It was smooth, but not quite; as he rubbed its surface, his skin caught slightly in tiny rough crevices.

"Pebble?" he guessed.

"Come on. Would I give you a pebble? Well, you're no Yomi. You can look now!"

He opened his eyes. The first thing he registered was the wide-eyed expression on his king's face, equal parts eager anticipation and mild mischievousness looking up at him. The hair, slightly messy (as usual, probably from running around and climbing on things), only added to the general impression of child, small, easily excited. The intricate battle god tattoos on his face, chest and exposed arms were about the only obvious reminders that this was one of the most powerful demons in all of Makai.

He smiled pleasantly at his king, and lifted the not-a-pebble to his face for inspection.

And blinked.

And laughed, shaking his head.

It was a marble.

A vandalised Rurimaru, to be exact, worth a thousand times its weight in gold. The chiselled characters of his own name stared back at him, a very square and blocky "North" followed by a remarkably precise "God".

He turned his hand, holding up the precious stone towards the other man. The stone shimmered from pale gold to pink to aqua as it caught the light.

"My lord," he said, emphasizing the tiny distance between his forefinger and thumb, "I was this close to wringing your neck that day."

"I know," his king said, grinning widely. "Good thing you didn't, 'cause my neck doesn't stretch like yours. And now you can remember that day forever. Gimme."

Before he could reply with I hardly think I could forget it, deft hands had snatched the stone back, out of his fingers. The king rummaged in his robes and after a while pulled something else out, grabbed his still-outstretched hand and turned it over, dropping a bundle into it.

There was a series of gentle clinks as fine chains settled in on themselves, nestling in his cupped palm.

He looked more closely at it. The chain was relatively short, so perhaps a bracelet. It looped around a tiny spherical cage, metal wrapping around a second rurimaru. This one was engraved with the king's name, the carvings confident, yet hasty and careless.

The king patted him on the chest. "The next time I do something crazy," he said, "and you're like, 'Fucking Yusuke, gonna kill him for real this time', you can look at that and remember everything turned out great."

He smiled. "I will look at it every day, my lord," he answered. The king laughed heartily, and turned to go.

Something gave him pause. "What are you doing with the other rurimaru?" he asked.

The king was already dashing off to the edge of the rocky hillside he had scrambled up moments earlier. The question didn't slow him down in any way, only made him half-glance over his shoulder. "I'm keepin' it," he replied, and waved flippantly without turning. "See ya later!" he called as he jumped off.

Author's Notes: The question of what Yusuke did with all those defaced rurimaru is certainly an amusing one to think about; here's one personal answer. And just for fun -

One large marble = approximately 18g.

18g x 1000 = 18,000g

18,000g x approximate current price of gold per gram (~$40 USD) = $720,000 USD

I have no idea how much rurimaru are actually worth, but assume comparable to koorime tears. In any case, a thousand times fit nicely in the sentence.

I've been drawing a ton of fanart of these two, so they've been on my mind a lot! I'll probably extend this into a collection of short pieces similar to what I did with The Wend (Star Ocean 2 fanfic series), with a general sense of setting but no particular chronology. (For those interested, you can find all my Hokushin and Yusuke art on my tumblr, username maiji, linked in my profile. The main tag is "yusuke and his nanny", hahaha.)