Underhanded ch. 2

Kuwabara, for one, thought the whole thing was basically the dumbest shit he had ever heard.

While he'd been waiting on the ground for Urameshi's confrontation to end, he'd felt mostly scared. He'd basically been fearing for the worst, he realized. He could sense another person up there with relatively low spirit energy, which should have been reassuring, but the voice other than Urameshi's that occasionally drifted down to him in faint snatches of yelling had been female, and he'd always been worse at getting energy readings off girls (they were less primal and more floaty). He really couldn't make out anything that was going on up there - Urameshi hadn't had to whip out any spirit attacks to defend himself, but beyond that they could have been doing anything from plotting the end of the world to playing freaking hacky sack. And when Kuwabara didn't know what was going on it made him edgy. Especially when it came to his boyfriend. (Hmph.)

But now that Urameshi was back down on the ground, devoid of any injuries but with the fury coming off him in waves after having told him everything that happened, Kuwabara was likewise just pissed off.

"I was expecting a girl, I guess, after that pansy-ass pink paper, but she was just standing there looking all smug and shit, like she already knew everything I was gonna do before I even got there. It's that stupid chick from the other class, not the one that you're in or the one that I'm in but the other one, yeah? With the reddish pigtails or whatever? And she goes, 'Hi there Yusuke~'" (he'd made his voice sound high-pitched and trashy in an imitation of the girl) "and I was like 'just tell me what the shit is going on.' And she was all 'I'm Kobayashi Kotoko,' and I was like 'I don't give a crap, just tell me what's going on.' So she says 'I have a reputation for being the biggest go-to girl in the whole school when it comes to gossip. If I start something around, everyone will believe me because they know I have all the answers. And I'm gonna tell everyone in Sarayashiki and beyond that you think you spend your weekends fighting demons and that you came back from the dead, and they're gonna call you crazy and lock you up - unless you do what I want.' But I didn't know what the hell she could possibly want from me, you know? So I was like 'I don't know what you're gonna get out of this blackmail shit - I don't have a lot of money, and if you want me to do all your schoolwork I'll probably just make you fail,' and she was like, 'No, Urameshi Yusuke, what I want from you is for you to be my boyfriend!'"

Kuwabara had never before wanted to hit a girl in his life. Now, he didn't think he'd have even stopped at "bloody pulp."

"But there's no way you're gonna go through with it, is there?" he said after a minute of it sinking in, really hoping that the stupid thing his voice was doing was not choking up.

It took a while for Urameshi to answer, which already wasn't a good sign. The answer he actually gave made it even worse. "I...don't really know what kinda choice I have, okay?"

"What the - "

"If she's right, and they do lock me up over here, then I won't be able to go over there and do the things they're gonna lock me up for in the first place. That was kinda the whole point of keepin' this detective shit a secret, y'know? And this underhanded bitch really looks like she'll do it too. She told me if I didn't give an answer in 24 hours that she was just gonna start the rumors."

"But...you've got other people who'd vouch for you! Me! 'N' Yukimura!"

"You guys are my best friends, duh. Of course you'd cover for me." Urameshi sighed. "She may be an honor student, but even Keiko's been known to do some stupid shit when I'm involved."

Kuwabara was grasping at straws. "Your mom'd never let 'em do that to you."

"If she were in a right state of mind, no. But who knows when they'd catch her? When they'd catch me? She's not exactly reliable."

"Damnit, Urameshi!"

"I know, okay?" He was looking at Kuwabara with a greater edge of defeat than he'd ever seen in his eyes. "I know. If she were a monster I'd blow her to pieces. If she were a demon asshole I'd lock her up and put her away. But she's a scrawny conniving shrew of a human being, and none of our usual tactics are gonna work on her. I don't see an alternative."

"Then there's only one thing we can do."

"I know, I know, god, I am so sorr--"

"We have to go talk to Botan about this."

-xxx-

While Urameshi retold the story to Botan, Kuwabara sulked. Somehow it was even more miserable and infuriating the second time around - now that he knew Urameshi's feelings on the whole subject. Now that he knew that he was just going to be a pussy and cave in, instead of doing what he was supposed to do, what he was famous for, which was fighting back even when fighting back didn't make any sense. They'd stood together to fight nasty demon after nasty demon - bastards who were trying to kill Urameshi, or take over the world, or unleash literal hell on innocent people. And he was going to take this shit just because some stupid girl with pigtails had threatened his secret identity? Kuwabara would never have given in like that.

Then again...Kuwabara had never actually been the real spirit detective here. He didn't quite know what kind of pressure Urameshi was under from Koenma and the other folks in charge, he didn't care to get his nose in all the freaky demon politics. And if you got down to it, wasn't that always a superhero's greatest weakness? Kuwabara thought about some of the shows he watched on TV sometimes, the comic books he'd read. The surefire way to trick a hero into doing something was to threaten to expose him for who he really was. Then all the innocent people could exploit him whenever they wanted - and all the bad guys would know exactly who he was and where he'd be if they wanted to come along and try to kill him. He'd be one big walking target.

Except wasn't the other thing the hero usually took just as seriously the person he loved?

Quickly trying to banish all his extraneous thoughts away - especially that unbidden L-word - Kuwabara tuned back into the conversation that Urameshi was having with Botan.

"This girl has put you in quite a predicament," Botan said, looking uneasy.

"That's one way to put it!" Urameshi snapped. "Can't you do something about all of this?"

"I'm not sure what! Usually if someone found out about spirit world goings-on who wasn't supposed to, we'd send in - "

"The spirit detective," Urameshi grumbled. "And she's on the lookout for me now. She kept talking about things that she so should not know about - it's like she's been following me around for months! How did she slip under everyone's nose like that?"

"Girls are all floaty," Kuwabara mumbled.

"Ugh, can't I just kill her?"

"She's an innocent human being, Yusuke!" said Botan, shocked.

"Hey, I was an innocent human being when I died!"

"Hardly."

"Oh, oh, I get it. I spend my days beating up assholes and skipping a few days of school, and I'm not an innocent human being. This chick stalks me, throws a brick through my window and blackmails me which I'm pretty sure is illegal - "

"And need I remind you that your death was an accident?"

"I'll make it look like an accident," he snarled under his breath.

"Look, we don't know how much she knows," said Botan. "If she's on to you, she's probably on to you, Kuwabara, and Keiko too. And we can't be sure with me, Kurama, or Hiei either. The best we can do is to send in someone else entirely, if we want to catch her off-guard and wipe her memories in some way. And I'm not even sure we can do that without pulling a lot of strings. Oh, I hate it when things like this happen and there's no precedent for it," she whined. "I can probably get a contact through Koenma's office, but it'll take at least a few days before that person will make it here. And...well...until then - "

"I have a girlfriend," said Urameshi. "Great."

"Sorry." She said it as if answering Urameshi, but she coupled it with a worried look sent to Kuwabara, and a little pang of something went through him. He didn't really know how to describe it, but he still reminded himself to thank her for it later, whatever it was.

Then suddenly her oar was in her hand, after being absolutely nowhere the moment before, and she reclined back onto it and zipped into the sky, leaving Kuwabara alone with Urameshi in the back of the park where no one ever went. He watched her go for a few moments, but then turned back to Urameshi. They exchanged awkward glances that weren't really what Kuwabara had been expecting, and then Urameshi just said, "Shit," and ran his fingers back through his already-gelled hair, and took off at kind of a half-run.

As Kuwabara turned to leave, too, he realized that what he'd been expecting from Urameshi was a look that sparked in him the same little pang of something, and it almost hurt that he hadn't gotten one.

-xxx-

She was everywhere for three days.

Oh, sure, Urameshi had waited until the last possible second of his 24-hour grace period before agreeing to her stupid blackmail. But Sunday afternoon she'd followed them to the arcade. Kuwabara had to bite his tongue so hard to keep from screaming at her that it almost started bleeding. Sunday afternoons at the arcade were his time with Urameshi. Not stupid Kobayashi sitting in Urameshi's lap while he taught her the controls to a racing game - over and over again, because she "couldn't quite get the hang of it!" Urameshi may have had crappy spirit awareness but Kuwabara knew that his bullshit detector was better than this. He raced next to her, clobbering her in the first few races until she started whining.

"Yusuke-kuunnn, your friend is being so mean! Make him go easy on me, he knows I'm new at this!" Behind her squinted-shut smiling eyes and curly hair there was a definitely sinister air, and Urameshi glanced back and forth between the two of them hesitantly.

"Hey...lighten up, would you Kuwabara? She's a girl, she's not so good at video games."

Kuwabara mumbled under his breath, but said nothing to the happy couple - just switched to a different car that he had a harder time controlling and started missing boosts on purpose. He heard Kobayashi comment to Urameshi as they were leaving that his friend was awfully quiet today. But he didn't really have much to say to them.

Monday morning he was walking her to school. It was picturesque enough to make Kuwabara ill - some of the cherry trees in the neighborhood were losing petals off their blossoms, which scattered down into Kobayashi's long hair and made her giggle. At least once, Kuwabara saw Urameshi reach over and pluck a couple away, his hands lingering a little too long. Kuwabara's memory flared up - a thumb grazing across the corner of his mouth, wiping blood away a little too tenderly to be anything casual - and he scowled even more deeply, and beat up a couple of first years for no good reason. He got a detention before the first bell even rang - but he'd take it, if it meant he didn't have to watch how gross Kobayashi looked while Urameshi was walking her home.

How gross, but how...normal.

The part that sent him over the edge was Tuesday at lunch. He'd walked down the hall to Urameshi's class, looking for him and thinking that maybe they'd get to eat together on the roof today - even guys with girlfriends got a break to hang out with the guys, didn't they? But when he peered into the classroom, there was Kobayashi already, hovering over him like a banshee or something and offering him a bento box she'd made. When Urameshi opened it up, Kuwabara could see heart- and star-shaped little somethings on the inside, all colorful and perfect, and Urameshi's small smile lit Kobayashi up like a lightswitch. She nudged her glowing face close to his, suddenly, and then.

And...then.

Her small pink lips fit against Urameshi's in a way Kuwabara could only hope that his ever had. Her kiss was soft and delicate, and Urameshi pressed back against her a little - he was returning it. As her hand swept back through his hair - a stupid motion Kuwabara had seen her do once or twice before, she seemed to really like it - she brushed past his left ear, and that's when Kuwabara noticed it.

His earring wasn't there any more.

When the chaste embrace was through, Kobayashi seemed to notice that someone was watching, and she turned to look at Kuwabara. "Oh, Kuwabara-kun!" she chirped with an acid fakeness. "We were just about to have lunch! Would you care to join us?"

"No," he said, "no. I was just leaving." He left the doorframe and took off down the hall, heading for the roof, definitely not crying. Kuwabara Kazuma didn't cry. Even if the guy who was supposed to be his boyfriend was kissing a girl and liking it - a cute girl with curly red hair and an alliterative name, a girl that made him special bento boxes, a girl that was probably what he'd wanted all along.

Even if the guy he loved didn't really seem to feel the same in return.

He ran past Botan in the hallway - she was heading in the other direction, almost just as quickly. But they were both so single-minded that neither of them stopped to ask the other what was going on.

Botan had to get to Yusuke. He had a case.