Botan/Youko Kurama

Chapter 4 - Haunted

Requested by: unmei k. isayama

Prompt - "You have two choices." - "Neither of which I like…"

It was a dark day, when she first met him. It started off like any other day, if she was being honest. She went to school, like many other days. She studied during her breaks, politely declining Keiko and Yukina's offer of lunch to do so. Botan didn't mean to seem rude, but she was behind in her studies due to lack of sleep. She had been having nightmares as of late, nightmares of a ferocious man chasing after her at lightning speed.

Let's just say that she was caught every time.

She would wake up in a cold sweat, and it would be early in the morning, to which she was unable to go back to sleep. Then the dark circles formed and her friends were beginning to grow worried over her. They even offered to walk her home, which she off course declined saying she'd be fine.

She felt immensely guilty. And she hated herself for it, but she didn't need to get her friends involved in her silly business. So she waved goodbye, an ever-glowing smile making it's way on her face, and she left.

Now she was standing outside her convenience store, frowning when it decided to rain. She let out a sigh of frustration when she realised she left her umbrella at home. The weather forecast never told her it would rain! They always seemed to be wrong at the worst of times, for her at least.

Now she was drenched. Running through the street that led to her home. She stopped running when she thought she saw something. She turned her head to the left, frown growing deeper. She could have sworn that she saw someone. He was glowing white, what she would picture a ghost to look like. When nothing met her eyes, she shrugged and continued running through the rain. Not knowing that a pair of sharp, golden eyes was watching her.

xxXxx

"Whew!" She said as she finally got through her front door. "Finally made it!" She shrugged off her school bag and lazily kicked off her shoes and made her way towards her kitchen. Her phone vibrated then, and saw that it was a text from her mother. It read:

'I won't be home until 7 tonight, so dinner will be a little late. We'll be getting takeout! Text me when you get home on what you want, love you! Xxx'

The blunette smiled and texted her reply.

'Chinese sounds perfect! Xxx'

She turned her phone off and unpacked the groceries. Afterwards she went upstairs, petting the cat on the way up. Once she stepped into her room, she felt that intense stare again. A lot closer this time. A noise from behind her startled her but immediately calmed down upon seeing it was only her cat. "Misty. What are you doing, startling me like that, hm?" She went to pick the fur ball up when the cat began to hiss. That scared her. She's seen enough horror movies to know that wasn't a good sign.

'Yep, not a good sign at all...' She looked around her room, not seeing anything out of the ordinary. That was until she realised her room suddenly got brighter. The light was coming from behind her, towards the window. Now Misty was hissing even more. "Kitty...?" She whispered before slowly turning around. She wished she didn't. What stood behind her was the man in her nightmares, long white hair and all. She was about to scream when the man put his hand on her mouth to silence her.

"Hush. If you scream you will alert your neighbours, and I won't promise I'll tear them limb from limb if they barge in here. I personally do not care what you choose, either way suits me fine." He slowly, but surprisingly gently, let his hand fall from her mouth. She kept her mouth shut, obeying his words. He smirked in response, then tore his gaze away from her to look around her room. "Such a dull place you have. I thought a girl of your age would have a more colourful room. Maybe humans aren't as imaginative as I thought." Botan felt insulted by that comment, but she was too afraid to say anything.

His fox ears began to twitch when Misty continued to growl at him. His golden eyes narrowed in the cat's direction. "What can a beast like you do to harm me?" The cat backed away but was still growling. The fox spirit smirked once again. "Thought so." His gaze went towards Botan. "So, are you going to stand there and stare or treat me like a guest?" The girl blinked in response, still scared of the tall man's presence.

"U-um..."

"Hn, it would seem humans are as rude as ever. I'll just treat myself." He said as he walked past her out of the door. That got Botan out of her stupor.

"Hey! Who do you think you are? This is my house!" The youkai was halfway down the stairs when he replied.

"It's not your house, now is it? Does your mother not pay the bills?" Botan was fuming now, back to her old self.

"It's more my house than it is yours, you rude, ignorant git!" This merely got a laugh from the man.

"Perhaps, but there is nothing you can do about it. I always get my way in the end."

"Over my dead body!" She yelled as she ran down the stairs. She was standing in front of him now, glaring daggers. "Now get out! I don't care how menacing you are! You don't live here, nor will I get you anything! Leave!" It took all of the little energy she had left to say all that. She was still wrecked from the lack of sleep. The only response she got from him was a blank look. Like he wasn't paying attention to single word she just said.

"Are you done?" When all she gave him was a tired huff, he continued. "Look, as much as I'd like to get out of this predicament, I cannot."

"What? Why can't you?! Just leave!"

"I said that I cannot. I am now what you would call a spirit, or if you'd a preferre, a ghost." He sighed when she continued to glare at him. "Honestly, if I were to make an excuse this is not the story I would lie with. This whole situation for someone like me is beyond an embarrassment."

"Right, whatever you say." She was a little calmer now, but still very on edge. "So, what does this have to do with me? Wait! If you are a ghost, or whatever, then how come I can see you?!"

"That's what I would like to know. You were the only one who could see me. That alone is the reason I chose to 'haunt' you. Otherwise, I wouldn't have looked twice at you." He said, another smirk marking his handsome features. It took her a moment to process what he had just said.

"H-hey! Are you saying I'm not pretty?! A-and what do you mean haunt?! You're not gonna haunt me!"

"Well, I am a ghost. That is what ghosts do, afterall. Haunt."

"I know what ghosts do, asshole." She said, mumbling the last bit to herself.

"Don't think my fox ears didn't hear that. They hear all." That was when she realised it.

"W-wait. What's with the, ears and tail?" It was silent right afterwards.

"You don't mean to tell me, you just noticed them, now?" At her nod, he let out an aggravated sigh. "Honestly, of all the people I could have stuck around, it was a blue-headed idiot. I am not human, as I'm sure you can see, but a demon, a fox demon." He puffed out his chest while bragging, much to Botan's annoyance. "I was notorious when I was alive. The best thief in all of Makai, but off course, my legend ended tragically early. I was killed by scum from Reikai, and ended up escaping to this atrocious world." He narrowed his eyes at her once again.

"Wait, what's Makai and this Rekai place you mentioned? I've never heard of such places."

"Off course not, most humans wouldn't, but you knowing may help in some way down the line." He sat there for a second, much to her aggravation. "Hn, Makai in short is Demon World, and Rekai is Spirit World. Us demons refer to this world as Ningenkai, you happy now? Lesson over." The girl nodded, still slightly annoyed at his tone of voice. It sounded like he was talking to an elementary school student. He said it himself, how would she know what these two worlds were like.

"Now, I'm stuck haunting a stupid school girl. The only one that can see me in all my glory. Be honoured by that fact, little girl!" He continued, pointing a sharp claw in her direction.

"Honoured?! Honoured for what?! Gimme a break!" Misty had calmed down and was sitting on the sofa, curled up, watching the scene. The yokai spirit sighed in boredom as he stared at the girl who was pacing in her living room back and forth. "My day was going just fine, now this happens! Why me?" She continued to pace for a whole two minutes, then realised how quiet her unwanted guest was being. "What are you thinking about, anyway? You're awfully calm, especially since you're dead and all." The fox spirit glared at her from across the room, which shut her up. He may be a ghost, but she remembers that he was able to touch her for some reason, so she didn't push her luck.

"I was just thinking of a solution to our predicament, since you so kindly asked." She decided to ignore that last part.

"Solution? The solution is that you leave me alone, how about that?"

"If that were an option, then I wouldn't even be here. Once a ghost makes contact with a human, they must haunt that person until another ghost takes it's place."

"What?! This can't be!" She yelled, she was so loud that it made Misty leave her spot on the chair and leave out into the kitchen. Youko also wanted to leave, but he also thought this was amusing. "My life is ruined..." She said, leaning on her hands and knees in the corner of the living room.

"You're being over-dramatic. No one else can see me."

"That's not the point! I can still see you! And if I'm talking to you in public, people will think I've become mad."

"So, you mean to say that you aren't?" He quickly dodged a school book the girl threw at him. "That's ladylike."

"Shut up!" He waited for her to calm down, and once she did he straightened up.

"Now that your little tirade is finished, may I finish my previous statement?" She looked at him in annoyance.

"You're not done?" At his serious look, she sighed and took a seat on a chair nearby, Misty coming over and hopping onto her lap.

"You have two choices. One, you wait it out until another ghost comes along. Or, we call an exorcist to extract me from your being and we can go our separate ways. Neither of which I like, since I'll be stuck here either way. At least with the latter my host could be less annoying than you, which isn't much of an accomplishment, but there's not much I can do about it." His eyes widened slightly in surprise when she jumped up in excitement.

"Yeah! I'll just ignore those rude remarks for now! Off course I'll choose the second option! Exorcist, here I come!" She was about to run out to the hallway when Youko spoke up.

"Do you even know where to find one? Didn't think of you as the supernatural type." She tripped over her shoes when she realised how right he was. How embarrassing. She sat up, still on her knees. She looked back at him, face flushed.

"Oh, no, I don't..." She walked back over to her seat, Misty going back on her lap. She gave the cat a few pets, calming down soon after. " Fine, I'll just have to look into it, won't I?" Her eyes wandered over to her clock, surprised that it was almost 7. "Mother will be home soon. Funny how time passes when you're haunted by a ghost..." The man simply shrugged as he leaned back against the wall on the other side of the living room.

'Well, this will be a boring experience.' He begrudgingly thought to himself. He wanted to curse his fate of ending up haunting a boring, useless girl. He eyed her again, glaring when he saw the smile on her face when she was hugging the cat. 'Even in such a situation she can still smile. How annoying...' Yep, safe to say he will definitely not enjoy this experience, not at all. Or at least that's what he believes, however, fate can be a funny thing.

Tbc

AN - And again, I want to continue this scenario. So much for doing one-shots. My mind is too open-minded xD I've been in hospital for the last 3 weeks and haven't been in the mood for writing. But i will hopefully get to go home tomorrow, which of course made me feel better! Maybe I should put all the suggestions in a random name picker and do it this way? I'm getting so many suggestions now :D And if there's any scenario you'd like to continue yourself, then feel free to. I think 10 chapters will be good before I continue any. And I got the prompt for this chapter on tumblr blog prompt-bank. There's some good ones there.

If you want, send me a prompt! They're fun to use. Off course, the prompt can be from anywhere you'd like

Reviews

CrimsonMaidenXXX - Yep! And here is the jealous fox himself! Enjoy :D

unmei k. isayama - Thank you so much! I'm probably the laziest writer but I'm glad you enjoy my stuff anyway. Thank you for the suggestion. Jin is cute as hell, and they would make such an adorable couple. I may write them next! Kurama/Botan/Hiei sounds fun too!

Rad1anceU - I know! She's just too shippable man! It should be a crime to be so cute! She really is relatable though, she's brave when she wants to be but can also be cowardly. Kaname/Botan sounds good too!

Empress of Demons - I like your new pen name, and yep, another story , hehehe. My imagination can not rest I'm afraid. And there is so much you can explore in the yyh universe!

Keep the suggestions rolling!