Part 6: Roomies

"Ow…."

Kuwabara leaned over to observe Naruto where he lay crumpled upside down, legs propped up on the side of the ramen bar, upper body sprawled under a couple fallen stools. "You doing okay, down there?" he asked with some sympathy.

"…huh?" Naruto managed past an aching jaw as the words bounced in his ringing ears without really registering.

"That's what I thought."

The tall boy reached down and helped right the stools while Naruto sat up and rubbed tentatively at the bump forming on the back of his head, and then the bruise already fading on his chin and thought Ino really ought to have shown some restraint, considering that Naruto'd just gotten out of the hospital. Weren't girls supposed to be nurturing or something?

But girls were a mystery to him at the moment. A vicious, hard-handed mystery with a mean right hook.

Then again, all things considered, he'd probably gotten off easy. Since it had been Sasuke Ino had been defending, he was probably lucky to still have all his limbs. All of Naruto's problems seemed to originate from the Uchiha heir. And people wondered why Naruto wanted to kick his smirking face in most of the time. Stupid Sasuke.

Naruto climbed back onto his stool and perked immediately when he noticed that his ramen had remained intact, and hadn't cooled too much. He decided to forget about the Ino Incident for the time being, and resolved to find and talk to Sakura later (preferably when she was FAR AWAY from the blonde girl). He wasn't looking forward to trying to explain himself to Sakura, and thought Sasuke really ought to be there, too, to explain himself…

But that would be a post-ramen problem. Right now, he would finish his noodles…

"Kurama, Hiei kissed you."

…and be amused that Yuusuke was still attempting to deal with his disbelief.

"Hiei kissed you. Hiei! Hiei kissed you!" This was, perhaps, the twenty-seventh rendition of the exact same conclusion. Naruto hadn't really been keeping strict track.

Kurama had managed to make light of, blow off, or flat out ignore about twenty-six previous rounds, but apparently he'd reached his limit.

"I'm sorry, what was that?" he snapped peevishly, crossing his arms and glaring at Yuusuke in a way Naruto felt sure was meant to make the dark-haired boy feel about as big as a gnat, and half as smart as one. "I didn't quite catch it. Perhaps it you say it a few dozen more times alternating between various pitches and tonality, and throw in some funny accents, I'll understand you better."

"Yeah…" Yuusuke still had a dazed look, and it was obvious Kurama's words had bounced right off the shell of shock surrounding him. "But-Hiei!"

Kurama stood up. "I think it's time we get back to the hospital, don't you?"

He moved as if to reach into his pocket of his pants-a pocket that didn't exist in the hospital clothes he was wearing-and froze. "Ah…" His annoyance faded, replaced by something less sure. "Does anyone know how we're going to pay for this?"

It was amazing how much you could learn about a person if you were observant and watched them wash dishes. Naruto wasn't all that observant, but he still noticed that Yuusuke tended to scrub plates with large, hastily enthusiastic motions that sometimes missed food bits. Kuwabara bitched at him while drying, making him redo a few-or trying to make him redo some-and between them, more water was on the floor than in the sink by the end. Kurama stacked the dried plates neatly. He had a knack for knowing where everything went.

Naruto grumbled under his breath as he swept, but didn't protest too loudly, considering how sheepish he still felt about forgetting to bring money. The owner of Ichiraku watched them as he counted down the register, expression gruff. The waitress restocked supplies and tried to hide an amused smile.

When they were finished, they trooped back to the hospital and slipped inside. Security was loose-the village only on low alert, not quite recovered from the unexpected visitors and their interesting allies, but not caught by surprise any more, either.

Yuusuke and Kuwabara went one way, Kurama and Naruto the other, back to their rooms. The daffodil mumbled something that sounded snide as they came in, but it was mostly asleep and Naruto wasn't really paying attention. The day was catching up. The food in his stomach made him warm and comfortable.

He dismissed his clones and slipped into bed, listening to the trees gossip quietly until he fell asleep.

The Genin grapevine was the fastest method of communication in the village. As soon as Ino knew he was awake, everyone knew. So in the late morning, about halfway through the second series tests and paperwork, people began trickling in, and Naruto was subjected to a round of hugs and back-poundings, well-wishes and lectures to never be that stupid again from the various people who stopped by. Around lunchtime, Yuusuke showed up and took Kurama away.

Naruto barely noticed, too busy soaking up the attention. He did some requisite posturing, insisting his wounds hadn't been nearly as bad as the rumor mill supposed.

To which Chouji replied that Kiba now owed him lunch.

Naruto insisted they take him with them, since it was his mortality they'd been betting on. After a tussle that got them a firm scolding from the hospital staff, Kiba agreed, and they were off.

Along the way, they picked up Shikamaru, who was waiting for them in the lobby, and Lee, who was just leaving from his annual check-up (spinal-chord injuries always had the possibility of going awry, even after they'd been healed, Tsunade-baba had said).

They met Neji on a bridge. He was facing the water, Tenten beside him, leaning with her back against the rails. At Naruto's offer to join them (since Kiba was paying, he didn't care how many came, and he actually rather enjoyed the idea of grabbing as many people as possible), the girl rolled her eyes and said she'd rather throw knives at things than watch a bunch of boys gorge themselves. Neji, however, pushed away from the railing and fell into step beside Lee.

Despite a long and very loud argument, they ended up at the barbeque place Chouji loved since he had technically won the bet. (Naruto'd argued that he'd won the bet. After all-he'd been the one to survive, but no one was really listening at that point.)

The waitress showed them to Chouji's "regular table" and on the way, Naruto nearly careened into Sakura, who was coming out of the bathroom.

"Sakura-chan!" he said as he untangled himself from her. "Do you want to come eat with us? Kiba's paying!"

"OI! You idiot!" Kiba said from somewhere near the head of the group. "Stop inviting people, already!"

"No." Sakura eyes darted to one side. She had one arm across her body, hand on her opposite elbow, hugging her arm closer to her side. "Um. I was just leaving."

Her body language and the way she avoided eye contact confused him for a moment. "Huh? But, Sakura-chan…" And then he remembered-the kiss, the crushed daffodil, stupid Sasuke, and awkwardness tripped up his tongue. "No, ah, I mean…but, that was…"

By the time he'd thought to tell Sakura to blame Sasuke for all of it, the girl had already pushed past him, and was making her way toward the exit.

"Sakura? Hey!" Ino appeared, coming from the same direction as Sakura had, and gave the boys a brief glance before pushing past them. "Where are you going? I thought we were eating here-"

Then they were gone, and Naruto was left feeling a bit like he'd been clipped in the head and stomach by Chouji's Meat Tank attack.

"What the hell's wrong with them?" Kiba asked.

Naruto couldn't tell them, wouldn't tell them, and they were boys. So, though Neji looked thoughtful, Kiba scowled, Lee frowned after Sakura, Chouji eyed the girls curiously and Shikamaru gave Naruto a sharp look that almost immediately faded back into his usual droll expression, they eventually concluded that girls would be girls, and went to have lunch.

Yuusuke's life was a complicated thing, something he tended to ignore most of the time. He had friends that ignored it, too, so that helped. Since being transported to some alternate universe where there were ninjas and big ass trees, and demons sealed in young boys (okay, that last bit wasn't too unusual), his life had become a lot more complicated. Up until this point, he thought he'd been handling it well.

"You want us to hide?"

The old guy in the weird hat was sitting at the front of the room behind a long table. Beside him was teacher-guy with the scar cutting across the bridge of his nose. In discrete corners were the old guy's guards.

Yuusuke felt like he was back in the principal's office-the principal's office of a military academy. Not something that helped him absorb the situation with a calm and rational mind. It helped a little to be flanked by Kuwabara, Kurama and Hiei standing in their places just behind him. Immediate back up eased a bit of the tension.

"I'm just asking you to be discrete," old guy said, hands folded on the table, expression neutral, but something in his eyes told Yuusuke that he was amused.

"We suck at 'discrete'," Kuwabara muttered.

Teacher-guy winced a little.

"It's just until I think of a proper cover story for your being here and within close proximity to myself and Naruto," the old guy said, his eyes still twinkling, though his voice remained patient. "Until we can explain your presence here, it's probably best for as few people to see you as possible."

Yuusuke let that reasonable reply sit out in the open for a moment until it started to look around nervously for cover, before answering. "Yeah, okay. Fine. But where are we supposed to stay? It's not like we can pay for any housing, or anything. Plus, you're going to want us near the kid-Orange Pants."

"Naruto," teacher-guy corrected automatically.

"Sure, whatever. You're going to want us near him."

"Why?" the old guy asked, raises an eyebrow slightly.

"Because no one is really sure what's going on or how this thing works-but we're probably the most qualified to handle whatever trouble might come up, and we can't do that if we're holed up in some little room somewhere under house arrest."

The old guy let that hang in the air for a moment, before the amusement returned to his eyes. "I have just the solution."

Naruto actually had some difficulty giving the others the slip, but he didn't really want company as he walked home, taking the longer but more familiar route, the one that went past Sakura's house. He wasn't ready to actively seek her out, but if she just happened to be around…

But she wasn't. He was both relieved and disappointed, and the barbequed pork sat uneasily in his stomach. Slouching a bit more than usual, hands in his pockets, he trudged home, up his steps, unlocked the door to his apartment, pushed it open-

And froze.

"Oh-" Kurama said, his hair pulled back by a kerchief (where had he gotten that?), his hand poised with a dusting rag. "You're home! Welcome back!"

In the background, Kuwabara carried an armload of clothes into Naruto's room. "Sorry," he said, "we had to do a little rearranging."

"You're messier than I am!" Yuusuke sounded rather too triumphant about that as he wandered by, holding a broom propped on his shoulder like a spear.

"That's nothing to brag about." Hiei didn't appear to be helping, unless his role was to glare everyone into productiveness.

"What the HELL are you guys DOING?"

They all stopped to stare at Naruto with varying degrees of incredulity, then exchanged looks with varying degrees of hesitance. Finally, Kurama-who'd apparently been elected as spokesman in that brief silence and round of significant glances-spoke up.

"You mean…they didn't tell you?"

Naruto's brain took very little notice of all the heavily weighted eye-contact, still stalling in the annoyance of Not Knowing What Was Going On. "Tell me WHAT?"

"We're…er… We've been assigned to stay with you. For a while." Kurama smiled sweetly.

"You WHAT?"

Naruto had only moved into this apartment a month ago. It was a bit larger than his old one, and had a laundry room downstairs so he didn't have to troop three blocks to the nearest laundry mat. Though he was still technically a Gennin, his missions were mostly A and B class these days, and the pay reflected that, so he'd been able to afford a better place.

This meant, however, that the residents of this particular building weren't familiar with Naruto and his tremendous capacity for making noise. Heads were beginning to poke out of doorways, curious and/or somewhat hostile eyes considering the scene.

Since he was the closest, Kurama reached out, grabbed Naruto by the front of his jacket, and jerked him into the room, shutting the door behind him.

Naruto found himself immediately passed to Yuusuke, who was doing a surprisingly good job of sounding perfectly reasonable as he set the broom aside and lead the blond further into the apartment. "Look, don't worry about it, okay? The old guy set it up. We thought you knew, so we took some liberties. Sorry about that. But everything's been arranged. We get allowances for food. We've made up the beds already…"

They had shoved his couch up against the far wall. It had been in the middle of his living room. It was a large, ponderous piece of furniture, stuffing showing through in places, upholstered with a loosely woven, coarse fabric that had probably once been a pleasant sand-color and was now the color of piss on dirty snow. Naruto had rescued it from someone else's trash years ago, and viewed it as a sort of faithful pet that would always be there waiting for him when he got home. That it was now consigned to a corner made him bristle slightly.

The couch had been moved to make room for the large futon that was rolled neatly on the floor. There were two, smaller futons flanking Naruto's bed in his own room. What had been a pile of dirty clothes strewn over his floor were not a pile of clean clothes set on his bed, sorted by color, underwear in a separate pile. His apartment wasn't very big and there weren't many places to sleep, but the blond still had the urge to demand they take themselves out of his personal space.

"It'll be great!" Yuusuke concluded with a wide gesture.

The little tour of Naruto's rearranged apartment ended in the kitchen-which was spotless like it hadn't been since he'd moved in and spent enough time here to accumulated dirty plates in the sink. Yuusuke maneuvered him over to the table. Kuwabara was at the stove, pouring out a pot of hot water into a familiar Styrofoam bowl.

As he sat down, Kurama snapped apart a pair of chopsticks and handed them to him. Kuwabara set the ramen down in front of him. Yuusuke braced himself on the back of Naruto's chair and sort of…leaned. Hiei was standing against a near wall, arms folded, still glaring.

Naruto had the brief, slightly dazed thought of, Now that was teamwork. And he might have even been impressed if they hadn't been teaming up against him.

On the one hand-ramen, and a clean house, and people to make the apartment less empty from time to time. On the other hand…four people living with him in his already-small space, all of them kinda weird and rather powerful. Plus, they all seemed determined to involve themselves in his business.

On the third hand…ramen…and they were powerful…

"Okay," Naruto decided, digging his chopsticks into his noodles. "But!" he added, before they could relax completely. "Two things. One, who's sleeping in the double?"

Yuusuke jerked a thumb back toward Hiei and nodded to Kurama. "The honeymooners."

That earned him scalding glares from both quarters, which he ignored.

"No sex in the house," Naruto said.

Kurama made a strangled sound, and looked scandalized. "We're not…that's…"

"That's fine," Hiei said over Yuusuke's snickering.

"What's two?" Kuwabara asked, in an effort to bring the conversation back on track.

"I want training." Naruto stuck ramen into his mouth, slurping happily in the silence following that statement.

"Training?" Yuusuke said.

"What do you mean 'training'?" Kuwabara asked.

Naruto shrugged. He hadn't really thought it out that far. "You guys have got to have some skills that you can teach me, right? Kurama can talk to plants."

Kurama started slightly and then looked embarrassed when the others glanced at him.

"And that guy," he pointed at Hiei with his chopsticks, "can teleport and set up 'barriers'-what ever that means. And you work for a god, right? Gods just don't choose losers without power to work for them."

"The 'loser' part is debatable." Kuwabara eyed Yuusuke, who rose to the bait.

"You shut it."

"Our powers are specific to ourselves, Naruto," Kurama said. "Though you've borrowed some of mine for the moment…"

Naruto noticed the curious glances Kurama's other teammates gave him again, and guessed they hadn't been aware of that until he'd said something.

"…it's not something we can train you to do."

"That's fine." Naruto, put down his chopsticks, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and gave Kurama a steady look. "But you didn't just wake up one day and used your powers perfectly, did you? You had to develop them. I have my own skills. I'm always looking for new ways to train them. That's all I'm asking."

"Okay," Yuusuke said, which seemed to settle the issue. "That's doable. But not today."

"But!"

"You just got out of the hospital!" That was Kuwabara, who, as the tallest of the group (and presumably the oldest, but Naruto was just guessing), could give Naruto the best intimidating look-down, arms folded, frowning. "Give it a rest for a couple of days."

"But!"

"Kuwabara and me are going shopping," Yuusuke declared. Kurama winced and looked as if he might protest, but Yuusuke cut him off. "Hiei is upping the security around the apartment. Kurama's in charge of helping you make up with your girl."

At Naruto's fish-on-land imitation, Yuusuke grinned. "What, you think we didn't notice?"

"Yuusuke." Now Kurama looked outright annoyed. "It's hardly appropriate to offer such a thing. It's not any of our business-"

"Kurama's elegant and stuff." Yuusuke had grabbed Kuwabara and was pulling him out the door. "And he cares about manners. Girls like that. He's good with that shit. He'll help you. Bye!"

"Yuusuke-wait!" But the door slammed on Kurama's words and they were gone.

Hiei spared a moment to smirk at Kurama, who returned with a rather ungracious scowl, and then Hiei glitched into a black streak and was gone.

"I'm going to kill them," Kurama said, belying Yuusuke's assurances that Kurama was 'elegant' or anything but downright murderous, at the moment. "Kill them all. Slowly. With rusty forks."

"Um…?" Naruto said.

"Eat your ramen," Kurama said, still glaring at the closed door.

Naruto did as he was told.

"Hey." Yuusuke was self-appointed leader, and had been ever since the god of the afterlife (junior) had pieced together this ragtag collection of personalities and declared it a "team." Yuusuke only pulled rank occasionally, though, when things got truly out of hand, or when he was feeling particularly obnoxious.

This meant he didn't have to do things like carry all the bags or choose the correct head of lettuce-two things Kuwabara was doing stoically and with a studious intensity that Yuusuke might have mocked if he hadn't been distracted.

Being leader meant you sometimes had to address the tough issues, too. That was part of the job Yuusuke didn't like. But he didn't often shirk it, either. "Hey. Are you all right?"

Though Kuwabara had been complacent enough with being the only one doing any shopping even though they were both wandering through the market didn't mean he didn't resent Yuusuke for it heavily. The glare he shot in Yuusuke's direction said as much. "What?"

"Are you…all right? With Kurama and Hiei."

"They're not dating, Urameshi." Kuwabara went back to carefully squeezing tomatoes in dismissal. "Kurama needed a kiss to wake him up. Hiei wasn't about to let some stranger do it."

"Would you have done it?"

"Sure."

"What?" Yuusuke nearly put his hand through the cantaloupe he'd been prodding absently.

"You have to smell those to know if they're ripe. You can't just poke it."

"But-wait. Say that last thing again?"

"About the cantaloupe?"

"No! About kissing Kurama!"

Kuwabara chose three tomatoes and then paused, debating over a fourth. "It's not a big deal, Urameshi. Get a grip."

Yuusuke stared at Kuwabara for a long moment, disbelief scrabbling at the walls of his mind, trying to find a voice. When Kuwabara finally turned and smirked at him, Yuusuke knocked out the feeling with a well-timed blow and cleared his throat, looking blindly at grapes.

"So…you're all right?"

"I'm fine."

"Are you sure?"

"Urameshi, when I say 'I'm fine' like that, I'm not speaking metaphorically."

"I don't know what 'metaphorically' means, but let's take a moment to remember some things."

"Let's not."

"Remember that time in the tournament when Toguro stuck his hand through your chest and everyone thought you were dead?"

"He only stuck his hand partway through my chest and you were the only one who thought I was dead, and then you nearly killed me afterward when you found out I was alive."

"You were faking and everyone knew it but me! You deserved to have your ass kicked."

Kuwabara let that one go. "So? What about it?"

"Remember afterward, when you said you were 'fine'? Even though you'd lost, like, quarts of blood and had broken ribs-"

"And a concussion because you kicked me in the head."

"-and there was a big gaping hole in your chest! So excuse me if I don't believe you every time you say that."

A small old woman was staring at them, hand hovering over a bunch of asparagus. Yuusuke realized he'd been talking rather loudly. Kuwabara glared at him, and Yuusuke glared back, and then Kuwabara put his tomatoes into the basket and Yuusuke picked up a cantaloupe and sniffed it experimentally.

"It's good," Yuusuke said, handing it over.

Kuwabara dropped it in with the rest of their groceries without protest.

"It's not so much the boy-kissing-boy thing," he said as he moved on to onions, scrutinizing them though Yuusuke couldn't begin to imagine the difference between one bag and the next. "It's the Hiei-kissing-Kurama thing. I just…I can't see Hiei kissing anyone. Except now I can see him kissing Kurama. Over and over. In my head." He picked a bag. "And that sort of makes me wish someone would beat me until I pass out."

"And this is what you call 'fine'."

"What about you?"

"Me?"

"Yeah."

"I'm fine."

Kuwabara looked unconvinced. "That lost-quarts-of-blood-with-a-gaping-hole-in-my-chest fine?"

"…maybe. But, hey. You recovered from that. I'll recover from this."

"Sounds like a plan." The onions went into the basket.

"So can we stop talking about feelings and stuff?"

"Yeah. Back to the manly?"

"Definitely. Cars."

"Beer."

"Cooking outdoors."

"Grunting and spitting."

"Titties-like 'em big."

"I'm going to tell Keiko you said that."

Yuusuke glared. "Do it and die."

They finished their shopping without further discussion, beyond a brief tiff over whether or not to buy peaches ("They're hairy! It's gross!" Yuusuke said, and Kuwabara called him an idiot and told him to shut up or help carry the bags. Yuusuke shut up.), and were in the process of paying when Botan appeared. She was sitting on her oar but in casual clothes-jeans and a hooded yellow-and-blue sweatshirt.

"Guys! What are you doing?"

The scolding tone in her voice caught Yuusuke a bit off guard.

"Uh…paying for groceries…?"

"Why aren't you guarding Naruto?"

"Guarding…?" Alarm was a fissure down Yuusuke's spine. "Why would he need to be guarded…?"

The fissure turned into a pulse-a ki signature, unfamiliar, hostile. Demon. There was a sound like a gigantic piece of paper ripping, and then a roar from the throat of something inhuman. It rattled the glass in the windows.

Botan shielded her eyes from the blast of hot wind that kicked through the streets, then shouted over the noise. "Because of things like that!"

Wow, I'm evil. Another cliff-hanger. Just FYI, I'm re-uploading some of my chapters to do a little housecleaning (removing typos, adjusting author's notes, etc.). I don't know if that effects those of you on author alert. If so, please ignore.

Some notes:

Hiei can't teleport (to my knowledge, although it sure looks like teleportation sometimes). He just moves really really fast and can jump really high and whatnot. But Naruto doesn't know that.

Kuwabara is not the oldest. He's the same age as Yuusuke, and they're the youngest in the group. Kuwabara looks older because I say he ages somewhat normally since he's human, whereas everyone else is a demon.

I'm writing my own YYH information page, but it's going slowly since html-ing tires me out. So! Until then, those of you who are curious can check out this page:

http: agaru. fateback. com /

Remembering, of course, to take all those pesky spaces out of there. It has good information, and good pictures. You have to forgive the boys for what they're wearing sometimes, though. Remember, this series was written in the '80s and their styles occasionally reflect that painfully.

Okay! On to the part that...oh, you know the drill, by now.

Replies to comments: (And everyone else gets love too!)

Yanslana - you get cookies because I just really enjoyed your review. Kyuubi as Youko's father? Wow. There's a concept. "KURAMA... I AM YOUR FATHER..." "NOOO! IT CAN'T BE TRUUUE!":plunge: Yuusuke: "What the hell just happened?" Kuwabara: "Did Kurama just fling himself off a cliff?" Hiei: "Stupid melodramatic foxes..." As a writer I'm thankful to have readers like you. :insert smiley face here-because ffdotnet always erases them:

Night-Owl123 - you get cookies too because, my goodness, I think you've reviewed every single chapter. I hope you continue to enjoy the story as much as you have so far.

kcgal - you get cookies (I'm all about cookies, this time) because you were the only one who mentioned the daffodil. I'm glad you liked it!