(A/N: I made Youko Kurama overly sassy. I hold no regrets. Also, something about Hiei and Kurama's friendship always make my stomach flutter, because let's face it. They're the ultimate power team and their bromance is epic. Also, heaaavy language.)

I wasn't always like this. I wasn't always amiable smooth talking member of society. I was a complete fuck up, scouting around the wee hours of the day to get my fix. Drugs were never really my thing, I would shoot up or pop pills once in a while, but I often found that boring and found out that I'd get my biggest high from the thrill of the chase. I guess in a weird unfetishized way, I would be considered an adrenaline junkie. The best feeling of complete and utter euphoria was when my adrenaline was at its peak, when on every corner there might be a chance of me getting killed. I lived for those moments, stealing and working for other people, living my life by taking only the most challenging tasks I could find. There would be times where I would have to sleep on the streets for days, not knowing where I would go next, until my next case would force me into some high end area. I was a number of faces with endless personalities, this job allowed me to change who I was each time, scout different places, never doing the same thing over. It was exciting, it was thrilling, it was my own sick way of filling this empty feeling I couldn't get rid of. After my mom died, I had no purpose in life, no moral compass whatsoever, so I allowed myself to do the only thing that gave me a remote sense of self.

My name began to sprout up from underground. They would call me Youko Kurama, named after the legendary fox. It had a nice ring to it and I was proud of the title, I was satisfied with my meaningless lifestyle and had no one to tell me otherwise. In my last mission, I was given the task to steal the account codes from the current CEO of the Enma publishing company.

Yomi was 6 feet tall with a stare that could cut glass. He stood straight and powerful and gave off an air of authority, as a CEO should. I knew guys like Yomi, guy whose egos were the size of their cocks, thinking that they own the world just because they had the future of countless other people in the palm of their greedy hands. Unfortunately, Yomi was different, and to this day I still regret not being able to see that.

He was smart. Boy he was smart. I barely had all the account numbers printed out before I felt his hands on my wrists, roughly pulling me till I was bent over his desk. Who knew that we'd be in this exact same position repeatedly for the months to come, with the exception of my pants being pooled down to my ankles. Yomi realized I wasn't just a dumb street rat when I made a snide remark about his account numbers not adding up. When I was looking up all the account information, including all the passwords, I scanned the transactions and realized someone was embezzling money from the bank accounts and stupidly let that fact slip out in the middle of cursing him out. I still remember his dumbstruck face as he quickly let go of my wrists and offered me a job on the spot.

I had no idea why I took it, better yet, I had no idea what the hell he was thinking. I had no idea why I left my life which I thought I loved so much only to work under some corporate business man I knew nothing about. But just like that, he took me under his wing, providing me support with every step of the goddamn way. He gave me my own apartment, a job, a stable lifestyle that I never really wanted, he even pulled a lot of strings just to get my name cleared from some places. Normally, I would be the worst basket case on Earth, if this was anyone but him I would have fled, burning the place down as I left. But, I wanted to impress him, I wanted him to know that even someone as messed up like me can pretend to be a functioning part of society.

One day, I stayed after hours until there was no one around but him and a stack full of papers. I crawled onto his lap, took his face into my hands and kissed him. We fucked on his chair that night, and I still get a little hot under the collar every time I walk into his office and see that faux leather seat. After I gave him permission to basically do whatever the hell he wanted with me, his touches felt more like the ones he gave me when he first pinned me down on his desk. I got the same high every time he grabbed me and threw me onto wherever he wanted to take me. He made me ache in places I never thought could ache and he would leave me gasping for breath, only to shove his tongue down my throat when I finally got that gasp of air I desperately needed. I loved every fucking moment of it, I loved walking around the office, knowing that under my dress shirt would be pretty blossoming red and purple marks from the night before. I loved the way that he would make be beg until I was near the very edge, until I was desperately keening until I found my release.

I had this sick pleasure of knowing that I was his favorite toy, and honestly I would have been fine if this whole thing was no strings attached, your typical cliché boss and subordinate type thing, but things never quite work out the way you want them to. He was sadistic in bed, but when the fun was over, he would roll on his side and lightly trace the bruises he left with his lips. He would stroke my hair until I went to sleep, and he would wake me up with long, slowly drawn out kisses. He made it seem like I was worth something, like I wasn't some hopeless cause.

Yomi was that new person I tried to live for. Every action, every sentence that came out of my mouth would be for his benefit to the point where my sole purpose in life was simply to live because he wanted me alive.

I really should have seen it coming. For the few people who knew me well, they knew I was careful when it came to trusting people, even then I would have my doubts. But never in my life I would ever think that I would have a deep emotional connection with another living thing. I should have known someone so respected to the public eye would have a wife. Yomi didn't really try to hide it either, and I guess it was my fault that he didn't have an ounce of remorse on his face when I saw the beautiful ebony haired woman clutch his arm and pull him into a kiss. I wasn't allowed to have emotions like this, I wasn't allowed to like him this way, I was his project and nothing more. And that alone should have sufficed.

Two weeks later and I was sitting in my office chair, throwing paper wads into the cubicle next to me, accidentally hitting Hiei in the face. He scowled as I caught the stapler he threw at my head with utmost finesse. Hiei was the first and only person I didn't force myself to interact with. He was quiet most of the time and when he spoke he tended to be quite boorish, but I liked him. He was honest while most people in this world were not, and therefore he earned my respect.

We had a sort of innominate friendship that we never declared out loud, but he usually made dreary days bearable. And most importantly, Hiei (with the exception of Kuronue) was probably the only person in the world who knew about my relationship with Yomi. I'm very good at hiding things, especially when it comes to covering my tracks, but everything was basically thrown outside of the window when a particularly hot day led me to take off my tie and loosen up my shirt. Even with my long silver hair covering my neckline, Hiei still managed to catch the fading marks Yomi left on my neck a few nights before. And with a click of his tongue he commented (not under his breath might I add), "I see you've been staying after hours again."I don't know how he found out or how careless I had been, but he knew. He never used it against me or said anything about it, it was simply something he found out about and chose to tell me about it.

Hiei had somehow crept into the routine of my otherwise uneventful life and settled comfortably into the everyday normality. He made things seem unchanged, like nothing had ever happened.

In a way nothing had happened. Yomi hasn't bothered contacting me and I wasn't too sure I wanted to talk to him either, and that night at the bar felt so far away, like I was in a lucid dream. The only thing nearly tangible from my meeting with Kuronue was the phone number I shamefully checked every night to make sure what happened wasn't a dream. I thumbed his contact info, debating if now would be a good idea to text him, when I felt a tap on my shoulder.

"Mr, Harada would like to see you in his office," a shy voice called out. Today, Yukina's mint colored hair was tied in a tasteful bun as her crimson eyes looked at me with honest sincerity like no other. Like Hiei, I had a keen eye for detail. I always wondered how a guy like Hiei, who seemed so adamant on living life independently, decided to work at a publishing company where things tended to become hectic and people swarmed the hallways on a day to day basis. Maybe it's because I pay attention to him too much, but it's easy to see when Hiei is acting out of the ordinary. At first I thought his fleeting glances at Yukina was because my short little friend had a bit of a crush, but his look was far from endearing. There was something very hard, very protective about his gaze, and that's when I noticed how similar they looked like one another. I never mentioned it to him simply because I knew he wouldn't want me to talk about it, plus I was keeping it as blackmail for future use.

"Tell him I'll come by later," I balled up another piece of paper and actually did make it into Hiei's trash bin.

"Um well," she twisted and played with her fingers as she put on the bravest face she could muster. "M-Mr. Harada made it sound urgent." Honestly if it was any other assistant, I would have just ignored them or at least given them a hard time, but Yukina was too gentle for me to hurt, plus Hiei was looking at me like he could give me a colombian neck tie at any given moment.

My gaze softened, I had a weak spot for girls like her. "All right, I'll be there in five minutes," I replied. I could have sworn I saw her give a breath of relief as she gave me a nod and sauntered off.

"Cute girl, isn't she Hiei?," my mouth twisted into a vulpine grin.

"I wouldn't know," Hiei answered through gritted teeth.

….

His office still looked the same as it did two weeks ago. Of course it was silly to believe anything changed in the course of two weeks, but unlike him, I couldn't look at my life the same way again. He had a wife and a kid to go back to. I had no one. I had grown accustomed to his office more than I had realized. His desk was it's usually cluttered yet somehow organized glory, and I could have sworn I could smell the leather from his couch which we would usually curl up on once no one was around. I felt small tug in my chest as I realized that I missedthis place.

"You asked for me?" I was going to make this as professional as I could. Talking on a casual level was something that would be too much for me right now.

He got up from his chair and walked towards me, stopping before he got too close to my personal boundaries.

"You seemed upset when you left the ceremony," he stepped a little closer, tentatively touching the side of my face.

"You never told me you had a wife," I didn't glare, I didn't even spit my words out. They surprisingly came pretty neutral. I didn't want a fight to break out, I didn't want to make a scene, I just wanted an explanation. I was never one to over dramatize anything, and I sure wasn't going to start now.

He dropped his hand suddenly, and I realized that I didn't want him to. I missed him, more than I would like to admit. "I didn't know that it was important. Before we started anything, I thought I told you that this was just—"

"Recreational fucking," I finished the sentence for him, trying my hardest to stare at something, anything but his face.

He stepped back, his expression unreadable. It was always hard to try and figure out what Yomi was thinking, and that was one of the many things that drew me to him in the first place.

"Look, I'm sorry if you thought this was something more than it actually was. And in a way, I guess it was my fault for letting it get to this point," his hands fell from my face and down to his side, leaving me with an empty feeling "I understand that you're angry, and you have every right to be, and the last thing I want to do is cause you anymore pain," he kept a safe distance away from me but all I wanted was for him to touch me again.

"I'm not angry," I didn't know how I looked at the moment, but I wasn't angry. I wasn't irritated, I wasn't jealous, I wasn't the slightest bit irked. But I was hurt in a way that no one can really feel because simply because I was prepared for this. I knew that he could drop me anytime he wanted to, and his attention towards me was a luxury that was coming to its close. He was more than I deserved and I knew that.

He pulled me in and held me close; I smelled the familiar scent of cologne that he remembered to put on every morning and the faint scent of ink since he had a habit of getting them all over his hands after a days work. I stood there, melting into his embrace, unable to process anything.

How was I going to live my life now? He taught me how to do everything, stripped me from my old life to get a clean, fresh start. Maybe he just had that kind of complex, maybe he liked to try to take broken things and fix them, maybe I did read too much into his touches. My heart sank as I wrapped my arms around his waist. I didn't want to let go, I didn't want to leave whatever fake paradise I had myself believing I was in. He cared about me, or made it seem like he did. In a world filled with cruel people, he was the first in a long time to show me genuine kindness without expecting anything from me in return.

But to him, I was his project. Nothing more.

I peeled myself away from him, hoping my stare was as hard and apathetic as I tried to make it seem. "So I guess this is goodbye."

His eyes widened as he placed a hand on my waist. "You're not going to quit because of all this are you?" his hands dug much harder into my hip bones and I winced from the pressure.

"Idiot, I'm not quitting. I'm just saying goodbye to all.. this" I waved my hand at him. In any other circumstance, I would have been laughing. But when he pulled away, I felt anything but happy. For a second, I thought I saw a hint of sadness on his face, but I didn't want to hurt myself even further.

He walked back to his desk and I made my way to the door before I heard him call my name. "Kurama.. If there's anything you still need. If you're at any trouble at all, I'm still here. No matter what relations we had in the past, I'll always be here if you need me," Yomi didn't even look up from his paperwork. It was as if he was just talking to a regular worker, which I guess I should classify myself as one now.

There were words I wanted to utter, words like "I need you" and "please don't leave me" and "I love you".

But I held my tongue and tried hard to swallow that lump forming in my throat because I knew that if those words accidentally slipped out of my mouth, there would be no turning back.

…..

As if my day could get any less satisfying, being in my apartment was just the icing on the fucking cake. This place reeked of Yomi. There were books that he would often leave here, he even had a suit or two hanging far in my closet, even the small things like the stupid fox key chain he got me sparked something almost vile in my gut. I grabbed the key chain from my bedside drawer and chucked it across the room. At the moment, life sucked.

I've been doing stupid things this past month and seeing Yomi just made me want to do more stupid things. So naturally, I sent a text to Kuronue. It took him less than ten minutes to reply to my text and another half hour to arrive to my apartment after I gave him my address. I wasn't sure what I was doing, which was something new because I've always been a person to never miscalculate my steps. I was meticulous when it came to timing and plans, but Yomi always had a way to mess up the natural flow that was my life.

By the time I heard a knock on the door, I almost ran to it, first checking myself in the mirror to see if I looked acceptable, then proceeding to mess up my hair because why the hell should I look good for someone I barely know?

"Hey," was the first thing he said when I opened the door.

"What the hell are you wearing," was what I said when I got an eye full of that abomination of an outfit. I wasn't really one for fashion, but what he was wearing was practically blinding. He wore a simple dress shirt that was shocking peptobismol pink and skinny jeans that had vertical stripes of alternating white and and that same shade of obnoxious pink.

He pointed to his milk brown name tag, the name 'Kuronue' stitched in gold. "It's my uniform," he pushed yet another shockingly pink object into my hands. It was a box in the shape of a flower with the same gold which elegantly spelled Margeaux's Patisserie & Confectionery.

"You work at Mergeaux's?" I recalled a quaint little pastry shop not too far from my house, but the only time I saw anything from it was when someone from work brought it over.

"I know the owner and it's good money," he stepped inside of my apartment, kicking his shoes off and settling himself on the kitchen counter like he owned the place. "You're lucky, I just got off work. I hope you like cupcakes and macaroons, they were fresh from this morning and it still tastes pretty good even though it's been laying out all day."

I set down the box and sat myself down on the couch, stroking my temples. "Why are you here," I groaned.

"Because you called me over. Or maybe I was misinterpreting your text message with the words 'come over' followed by your address," he rolled his eyes.

"Exactly. Why did I call you, why the hell did you give me your number, it's like I'm losing control of everything," I threw my arms up in defeat, slumping down further into the couch.

"Dude, you called me. It's not really that big of a deal. I don't think that constitutes the fact that your life is spiraling out of control ," he opened the box and took out a green macaroon.

"That's the point, I was never supposed to call you! And why the hell did you bring me dessert!" I gestured to the pink box in front of him.

He stopped chewing the macaroon half way, looking back at the round pistachio treat then back to me. "Because they're delicious," he chewed the rest and swallowed, brushing the crumbs on his pants.

"I don't know you, I don't know why you're here," I glared at his and folded my arms. I was being a complete dick and I knew it, but I held onto my pride because it's the only thing I had at the moment.

"Look, you obviously called me because you wanted me over. There must be something on your mind so spit it out," Kuronue got up from the stool and plopped down next to me with the box in his hand.

"Today was shit," he looked at me, pausing to see if I would elaborate. "And this house.. it smells like him," I leaned my head back into the couch and shut my eyes tightly. If I sat still and focused hard

enough, I could still smell the faint sweet scent of his cologne embedded into the couch.

He picked up a light purple macaroon and waved it under my nose. "Then smell this instead, it's lavender. You can even taste it if you want,"he urged. No matter how much I tried to fight it, I felt my lips curl up into a smile. "It's tough in the beginning. But I swear it gets better," he said as his tone grew a lot more somber.

I stared straight at him and blinked a couple of times before throwing my head back and laughing for the first time in a while. "I don't even know you, yet you're coming into my house and bringing me food and acting like we've known each other for years," I guess my genuine laughter came from the shock that nice people do exist, that or the fact that I invited a complete stranger into my house.

He simply shrugged. "Well the first time I met you, I tried to get into your pants, and we kind of spent the rest of the night together. I think that's a good basis for an unconventional friendship."

I thought for a moment, taking the lavender macaroon from his awaiting fingers. Unconventional. I liked the sound of that. Maybe a simple friendship with a slightly eccentric person is what I needed at the moment. Maybe I would stop thinking so much. Maybe I would be willing to give this a shot.