A/N: Thanks so much for the feedback!! And I'd also like to thank What2callmyself (which I totally forgot to do last chapter, sorry!) for keeping the fic all these years and sending it to me when I lost my copy.

Chapter Two

By Yami no Kokoro

Kurama's POV

I awake the next morning feeling more refreshed then I have in a long while. My depressed mood has vanished almost entirely, and I smile as I climb out of bed and begin to go through my normal morning ritual of shower, dress, check and water my garden outside, and eat breakfast.

Dwelling on things long gone can do me no good, and I can see that now with a good amount of clarity. It will get me nowhere in life to keep wondering about Hiei, wondering if he's missing me or if he's too busy with Mukuro to care. What I have to do is simply concentrate on what I do have now, and what possibilities there are out there, waiting for me.

Right. Like I haven't told myself this a hundred times before after a hundred different bouts of sorrow.

This time I mean it now. I'm making a silent pact with Inari at this very moment that whatever she deems fit to offer me today I will not turn down . . . at least, not right away, and certainly not out of some kind of obligation to the long gone koorime likely even now resting in Mukuro's embrace.

The mere thought of them together makes my heart clench and my eyes burn in anger, but I carefully push it aside. If Hiei loves that woman then it's no fault of his . . . or hers. Those are the cards that fate has dealt us. I received the Joker.

Now it's time to look at the rest of my hand.

Yusuke's POV

I take a deep breath and raise my right hand, move it forward, and drop it again. Clenching my teeth, I lift it up one more, slowly repeating the action.

Little did I know that Mom had decided to abandon her Saturday morning tv programs in favor of watching me, and jump when she calls from the kitchen doorway.

"You've been doing that for ten minutes, Yusuke. I know you're all special and everything, but I think it'll probably help if you actually used your hand to pick up the phone."

Shooting her a glare over my shoulder I reach forward and grab the telephone off the table. She shrugs and wanders back into the living room, muttering something I can't quite catch about strange sons and magic powers.

Of course, I haven't been trying to pick up the phone through telekinesis. I've been trying to get up the courage to call Kurama.

"Now or never, Urameshi." I mutter, and begin to dial the number from memory.

Kurama's POV

The phone rings just as I am finishing breakfast. Shiori is still asleep, so I pick it up quickly, not wishing to disturb her. Who would be calling this early?

"Hello?"

The familiar voice that comes through the receiver sounds a bit nervous as it replies.

"Hey, Kurama. It's Yusuke." I glance at the microwave's clock in surprise. 8:30 is certainly no early for me to be up on a weekend, but I remember hours enduring of complaints from both of my old human teammates about what an ungodly hour 10:00 was for someone to be expected on a Saturday morning.

"Yusuke, is something wrong?"

It would be just like Inari to send demons to attack us on the day I decide to seek out new opportunities. With my luck Hiei will show up to help with Mukuro attached to his arm, and just kill me inside completely.

To my relief my friend's voice filters through, sounding a bit alarmed.

"No, no. Nothing's wrong. Does something have to be wrong for me to call?"

I sigh, and stand, moving to place my empty bowl in the sink.

"Well . . . no. It's just so early, I thought it might be an emergency."

"Early?" There's a short pause on the other end of the line as I hear Yusuke fumbling about, probably for a watch of some kind. A smile tugs at the corner of my lips as I picture him digging through the disarray of his own kitchen's drawers, and it grows wider as it takes a full minute for him to find anything. Finally, he replies,

"Wow, it is early. Sorry, did I wake you up?"

"You forget, Yusuke, I like to rise with the sun."

A short laugh comes through.

"Yeah, it's a surprise with that little beauty sleep-" he stops suddenly, and my eyebrows raise curiously.

"What?"

"Nothin'. Uh, hey, Kurama, I was thinking, we've never really got to hang out with each other when our lives weren't at stake."

"We do seem to have a habit of running into each other at the worst possible times." I agree slowly, my brows now creasing instead as I lean back against my kitchen's ivy green counter.

"Yeah. So I was wondering, if you haven't got any plans today, if maybe you'd want to get together and do something a little more danger-free." Yusuke's tone is nervous again. I grab a salted sunflower seed from a bowl on the counter and begin to finger it offhandedly.

"Is anyone else going to be coming?"

Inari, why do you spite me so? If he says no then will I be agreeing to . . . no. He can't mean that.

"What, you mean like the spiritually aware pain in my ass? Nah, I think he's off visiting his girlfriend at the temple. Anyway, I like to avoid that loser as much as possible."

Strange, how after all of these years Yusuke and Kuwabara still cannot admit that they're friends.

"So it'd be just the two of us." He adds.

The two of us. Is my Yoko side just getting the better of me or does that sentence imply something more than just two friends meeting up? Could it be possible that Yusuke . . . but I would have noticed it before now, right?

But slowly I remember times that Yusuke has spoken to me in the same sweet, gentle voice that he's using now, saying things that I've long forgotten, which tell me otherwise.

/"So, how are your wounds healing, Kurama?"/

/"Keiko and I aren't together anymore . . . I just realize that she's not the one I loved that way."/

/"Kurama, what exactly is the deal between you and Hiei? . . . why? Because . . . never mind."/

/"I figure there's still stuff left for me in the Ningenkai. If not Keiko, then something else has got to turn up, right?"/

The hints had always been there. I was just too immersed in my relationship with Hiei to recognize them.

I can't do this, though. Yusuke is a good friend, but I don't love him.

/I'm making a silent pact with Inari at this very moment that whatever she deems fit to offer me today I will not turn down . . . at least, not right away, and certainly not out of some kind of obligation to the long gone koorime likely even now resting in Mukuro's embrace./

So Inari had decided to offer me Yusuke. Either way I answer now will seriously effect the friendship that I cherish. And it's just one day, just one date. I don't have to be in love with Yusuke for that.

But don't I have to not be in love with another?

The pause has gone on for far too long, and the unnatural nervousness is back in my friend's voice as he murmurs my name.

Closing my eyes briefly, I make a decision. I did make a promise, after all, and who am I to break an oath to the Goddess of all kitsunes?

"Of course, Yusuke. It's been far to long since we've last seen each other. Where do you want to meet?"

Hiei's POV

I've decided to ignore the dream.

It was only a nightmare after all, a fearful delusion left from the remnants of feelings that I still carry for the kitsune. Had it come from my Jagan I would know it, all dreams contrived from my third eye make much more sense than that.

Unless Kurama somehow turns back into his fox form (a feat that was still impossible last I saw him) and run away from me in a crowd of dressed up ningen who have decided to sway about ridiculously to silent music in a pool of blood I don't think that I have much to worry about. The Jagan never shows metaphors.

Anyway, going now to check on him would interfere with my training, and that's something that I can't afford to miss if I want to beat Mukuro sometime soon.

Training, that's the reason that I can't let myself go and see the fox again. Right.

I need to train.

TBC