Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ Christmas Time ❯ Chapter One ( Chapter 1 )

Chapter One: First Snow

"Hey, Kurama!" I giggled, twirling around. "It's snowing! Isn't it so pretty?" I stopped spinning long enough to look at him. He was smiling, his green eyes dancing with amusement. He had such amazing eyes.

"I thought you hated the cold, Kaline?" Kurama asked, humor in his voice. He looked me up and down, taking in my huge, furry coat and my other overly bulky winter clothes. I looked like a butterball in all those layers.

"I do, but this is the first snow of the year," I explained. "Maybe we'll have a white Christmas." Joy filled my heart, warming me from the inside. Even though I hated winter, I loved Christmas. White Christmases were the best, although they were rare.

"Perhaps we will here, but what about in your world?" he wondered, chuckling at my enthusiasm.

"I don't know," I answered. Kurama knew that I didn't live in the same world as him, although I did live in about the same time period. A little over a year ago I had discovered my powers, and I had slowly learned how to control them. It was only a little over seven months ago that I had learned how to travel between dimensions.

I visited Kurama very often, probably because he had quite a few of the same powers that I had. He had somehow acquired them when I had healed him not too long after we had met. I had just wanted to fix the hole in his stomach, not give him the same abilities as me. It had happened though, and it still baffled me and everyone else.

Kurama coughed, bringing me back out of my thoughts. I blushed for my rudeness. I always tried to pay attention to those around me, but every once in a while, my attention would get diverted.

"I kind of hope that it's snowing at home," I added, trying to cover up my blush. Thankfully it was cold. My cheeks were already red, so the blush didn't show much.

"I have a feeling that you will be more than happy when spring rolls around again, won't you?" Kurama looked at me, nose and cheeks almost as red as his hair. It was extremely cold out.

"Yes, but not until after Christmas," I told him, then turned to look at a coffee shop. "Do you want to go inside and warm up for a bit? We would be able to sit, talk, and watch the snow fall from in there."

"You must be extremely cold if you want to go inside already," Kurama commented. He knew that I was very susceptible to the cold. When Hiei had fought the third saint beast, I could barely stand the temperature. My lips had been blue the entire time, not to mention that I had shivered uncontrollably. I thanked the lord that Kurama had been kind enough to give me his shirt. The shirt had helped, even though it had been ripped up a bit. It had still been long sleeved and very warm. I also had thanked Kurama by giving him a polite kiss on the cheek.

"Yeah, okay... I admit it," I sighed. "My greatest weakness is the cold."

"C'mon then," Kurama said, heavily swinging an arm around my shoulder. I could barely feel the pressure from his arm through all the layers I was wearing. He used his arm to steer me through the door of the cafe, smiling.

Once inside, we picked a table by a window. I sat down on one side, and Kurama sat down across the table from me on another bench. I proceeded to strip off my heavy coat, my light coat, my sweater, my thin long-sleeved shirt, and my baggy t-shirt. After all that, I was dressed in a tight t- shirt and jeans. Kurama stared at me and the pile of clothes on the bench next to me, amazement in his eyes.

"No one would ever guess that underneath all that clothing you actually have the body of a super model," Kurama said jokingly, green eyes dancing with humor.

"You're just being silly, Kurama," I said, shaking my finger at him. "Haven't I told you that you need to start telling the truth?"

"Now why would I lie?" he inquired softly, a mischievous grin on his face. If it had been anyone else, I would have said he was flirting with me.

I couldn't help but laugh. "You can be so strange. Why don't you ever act this way when the guys are around? I've been trying to prove to them that you're capable of doing this, but if they never see it for themselves, they'll never believe me." I was talking about Yusuke, Kuwabara, Hiei, and Botan. All of them hunted demons and such along with Kurama and me. All of us were spirit detectives, which made life very interesting. My guardian hadn't believed me when I had told her what I did while I was gone, but when I had brought her to meet the group, well... her opinion had changed real quick.

"I just don't," he answered, shrugging his shoulders. He acted as if it was no big deal, which it wasn't. I was just overly curious, as I always was.

"Would either of you like something from our menu?" a waitress asked us, standing by our table. "Our hot chocolate is excellent today."

"We'll take two hot chocolates," Kurama said instantly. He had a habit of knowing what I wanted. There were times that I wondered if he had learned how to read my mind yet. I could read people's minds; and since I could, so could he. I rarely used the ability. Only in battle had I called upon that technique, because I had been up against a much quicker, agile foe. I hadn't felt like dying, so I had used my spirit energy to learn what the enemy was going to do before he did it. I had never used the ability against a friend though. That was just plain wrong.

"Are you psychic?" I asked jokingly. "Are you sure that Yusuke was the one who got to train with Master Genkai and not you?"

"I'm the one who's paying," Kurama explained, which surprised me. "And besides, I knew that you would want something hot. You also like chocolate, and I've seen you drink hot chocolate before."

"And when were you going to inform me that you were paying?" I asked politely, twirling a strand of golden brown hair around a finger. "I had been assuming that I would pay for myself."

"I was planning on surprising you," he said, spinning the salt shaker around the edge of its base, his voice rather soft.

"I've always paid for myself before..." I drifted off. "Why the sudden change?" Kurama refused to look me in the eyes. I became suspicious. Something was up, I just couldn't figure out what.

"I just felt like it," he mumbled.

"Okay, tha-"

"Hey, Kaline! Kurama!" a familiar voice interrupted me. "It's good to see you." Yusuke and Kuwabara came over to the table with Botan and Hiei not far behind.

"What are you two doing here?" Kuwabara asked in his rough voice. "And who's stuff is next to you?"

"That's all mine," I told him, slightly embarrassed, although I wasn't sure why. Maybe it was because I didn't like to appear weak. All the extra clothes showed that I was weak against the cold. "You do remember that I hate the cold, don't you?"

"Oh, yeah," Kuwabara said, nodding his head in remembrance. "You were turning blue and shivering unbelievably hard when we fought the third saint beast. It was kind of funny."

"Kuwabara!" Botan exclaimed. "That's not very nice to say. It's wasn't her fault. Everyone has their weaknesses... even you!"

"Sorry," Kuwabara mumbled, rubbing the back of his head, embarrassed. He felt a little stupid at the moment. He liked Botan, so he hated it when she was angry with him.

"Don't worry about it," I said, shrugging it off. "Why don't you all have a seat?"

"You don't mind?" Botan asked politely.

"I don't mind," I answered quickly, then looked across the table. "You might want to ask Kurama though."

The red head appeared to be rather annoyed at the moment, possibly because of the group's intrusion. Kurama and I had been having a one-on-one conversation, and we had been interrupted. Even considering that fact, I still couldn't figure out why Kurama would look so unhappy. Hiei was his best friend, and Kurama got along just fine with everyone else. I wondered what was going on.

"Hey, Kurama?" I said, voice gentle. "Are you okay with them joining us? You don't appear all that thrilled that they're here."

"Don't worry about me," Kurama answered immediately, voice sounding normal. "Have a seat. I don't mind."

"Okay then," Yusuke said, totally oblivious to the strange look in Kurama's eyes; but, then again, Yusuke didn't pay too much attention to details most of the time. In fact, he rarely ever paid attention to anything or anyone that he didn't want to.

Kurama and I moved down the bench to give the others room to sit down. Botan sat down next to Kurama, and Kuwabara took a place on the end of the bench next to Botan. Hiei sat down next to me, while Yusuke chose to sit at the end like Kuwabara.

"Why are you here? Is another demon in the vicinity?" Hiei asked, looking me in the eyes. I could almost sense his third eye staring at me from under the white headband he wore.

"I'm just here to visit," I answered. "I had a day off from school... not that it really matters anyway." With my ability to travel though time as I traveled from dimension to dimension, I was rarely gone from home for more than ten minutes or so.

"It's nice to know that I get a short break," Yusuke said, smiling happily. He acted like such a slacker sometimes. It's not like he worked any harder than the others.

It was then that the waitress delivered the hot chocolate. She asked Yusuke and the others if they wanted anything. Interestingly enough, no one wanted anything, although Kuwabara offered to get something for Botan.

"If you didn't have a drink already," Hiei started to say to me, a strange tone in his voice. He had never sounded like that before. "I would offer to get you something."

"You are lying through your teeth," I said, pointing an accusing finger at him. "I know you well enough to realize that!"

"I would," the three-eyed demon insisted calmly. "I don't lie. That is something only pathetic humans do." I instantly gave up on trying to figure the demon out. Hiei was just too confusing. Perhaps it was from that third eye he had or maybe even because he was short (although he was a little taller than me).

"People are sure starting to act strangely," I commented, more to myself than to the group.

"What are you talking about," Botan asked. I debated about telling her right then with the group there, but after noticing how Hiei and Kurama were looking at each other, I decided against it. Neither of them appeared to be very happy. They actually seemed to be angry with each other, although I didn't have a clue what was going on. Maybe there was a demon running around, messing with my friends' minds. That would explain the things which were going on, but I highly doubted that one demon could control another demon.

"I'll tell you later," I promised, then changed the subject. I purposely wanted to change the subject. I really did want an answer to a question though. "Hey, everyone... as a group, do you want to celebrate Christmas? Like exchange gifts or something?"

"Why?" Yusuke asked, being his normal, insensitive self. He leaned back in his seat, hands behind his head, brown eyes closed.

"Because it'll be fun!" Botan said, smiling. She seemed to be in favor of the idea. "Are we going to do it where we draw names out of a hat to see who gets who, or are we just going to get everyone a gift? This is great! I've wanted to celebrate Christmas with friends for the longest time!"

"It doesn't really matter to me what we do," I said. "I think that the drawing out of a hat would be the easiest on everyone budgets. Unless we get small gifts for everyone. That might work if we wish to get each person a present."

"I think that we should get a little something for everyone," Kuwabara commented. I had a feeling that he wanted to get Botan a gift, and he didn't want to take the chance that he might not draw her name out of the hat.

"I don't care," Hiei said, shrugging. "I see no reason to participate in some baka human tradition."

I gave him a puppy dog face. "Please? Pretty please?"

"If it will get you to stop contorting your face into that ridiculous shape, then I'll join you," the fire demon stated, crossing his arms.

"I don't see why you're making such a big deal out of it," Yusuke grumbled.

"Ah, come on!" I protested, reaching around Hiei to poke Yusuke. "Get in the Christmas spirit. Christmas is only six days away." I ruffled his black hair a little to try and get my point across.

"Alright, alright!" Yusuke said, finally giving up. "I'll just go with what Kuwabara said."

"Kurama?" I looked over at him. He had been silent through the entire thing.

"Yes?" he asked, coming out of his state of deep thought. He looked at me as if I had somehow hurt him. How strange.

"What do you think about the gift stuff?" I persisted, telling him with my eyes that I was sorry for whatever I had done. That was one of the nice things about Kurama--he could read my eyes pretty easily.

"I'm going with Kuwabara as well," Kurama said quickly, going back into his silent state. He had forgiven me, it was in his tone of voice, but he still wasn't very happy about something.

"Looks like we have a majority," Botan stated, smiling brightly.

"Good," I added. "Now all we have to do is decide when we're going to give the gifts to people. Would two days before Christmas work for everyone? That is three days from now. Or would a later date be better?"

"We could do it on Christmas day," Kuwabara suggested. "That would work for me."

Everyone was fine with that. We agreed to meet at Yusuke's place at two in the afternoon. Botan and I were the most enthusiastic, but Kuwabara was interested. The other three guys acted like they didn't care at all, although Hiei did express more interest in the discussion than usual.

Kurama left about ten minutes later, and Kuwabara and Hiei were the next ones to leave. Yusuke was the last of the men to head for home, leaving Botan and me alone.

"So now," Botan said, pouncing on the opportunity to talk to me alone. "What was the comment about? The one you said earlier?"

"Kurama ordered me a hot chocolate, saying that he was paying for it, and that he had been planning on paying for it. When I asked him why, he refused to look at me as he mumbled his answer, which wasn't a very good one," I explained. "When Hiei said he had been planning on doing the same thing, I got curious. Do you think some kind of demon has taken over the both of them? They're acting very strange. It didn't help that they glared at each other after Hiei said that he would offer to get me something."

"I don't think so," Botan thought for a moment. "I didn't sense anything unusual about them, and they've been acting perfectly normal around me."

"Maybe it's just me. Perhaps it's not really strange behavior; maybe I just think that it is." I rubbed my temples. Trying to figure out the guys was going to give me a headache, I just knew it.

"I wouldn't worry about it. If anything, the Christmas spirit is getting to them," Botan said, smiling. "But I will keep an eye on them, if that'll make you feel better."

"No, don't worry about it," I sighed. "I'm sure that things are fine."

"Okay," she said, unsure if I meant it or not. "Well then, I'm going to head off and start thinking about gifts. You may want to do that as well."

"You're right. We only have five days," I agreed. Botan left after a quick good-bye. Then, I headed for home.