Disclaimer: YuYu Hakusho belongs to Yoshihiro Togashi.

Loosely sequel-ish to The Ties That Bind and Drowning in Orange Juice. Not having read them will not make any difference in reading this fic. It's only considered a sequel because all three contain Kuwabara and Kurama and humor, and follow in chronological order. By accident.

The idea that "being throttled with your own tie, Corkoran found himself thinking in the midst of his terror, was quite as disgraceful as being drowned in orange juice" comes from the book Year of the Griffin by Diana Wynne Jones. Thanks to Madame Arrow Foxfire for telling me in a review for DiOJ about that line in the book! Without her, this fic would not be possible.

Disgraceful

His lips twitched upward of their own volition, a bemused smile creeping across his face. Chin in hand, he sat elegantly, perfectly poised as always.

Not that Kuwabara cared. He had flopped on the ground, puffing and panting, unabashedly exhausted. Kurama was one mean son of a—well, his human mother was nice, in any case. Son of a vixen, maybe, but he did not really care about that either. Being tired short-circuited his brain. It also apparently short-circuited the hand that was supposed to brush away the blades of grass poking his face. Oh well.

Ow. Why had he thought that Kurama looked nice, again? Because that was obviously the face of Satan. He may have been slow on the uptake, but Kuwabara was nearly certain that Kurama was smirking somewhere deep within that smug little ego. Evil, evil teacher. If he ever wanted help with school, he was definitely asking Yukimura.

So much abuse…and Kurama had not even hurt him yet. Well, except for that one time. But the demon had been rather torn between admitting he had hurt Kuwabara on purpose or admitting he was capable of making mistakes, so he had muttered something about "negative reinforcement" and sulked off to find some bandages.

The redhead was looking at his watch lazily. It was a very nice watch, Kuwabara's fried brain informed him. Familiar, though he could not recall seeing him wear a watch before. Maybe one of his friends had the same style or something. But he would have figured that Kurama would simply look at the sky and randomly know the time of day. And why did the time matter, anyway? The sun was still out, so that meant he still had a torture victim—er, student.

"I think we've worked hard enough today," said instructor announced, interrupting Kuwabara's musings.

Satan? No, Kurama was obviously an angel if he uttered this magic, life-giving sentence. "Whoo! The great Kuwabara Kazuma triumphs again, mastering every lesson he's given!" He revived sufficiently to flash a victory sign from his sprawled position.

Kurama still looked amused. That look he wore before he made comments, which was not always so bad, considering he mocked everyone indiscriminately, as opposed to a certain someone who was so insecure about his height that he had to take it out on other, more gifted people.

In any case, he beat him to it.

"Your mom's making you do something tonight, isn't she?"

Really, he did like this free present. But years of hanging out with Urameshi had trained him to look the gift horse in the mouth before it bit you in the—anyway, he was being cautiously grateful.

Kurama did not even have the grace to look ashamed at being caught. "Yes, Mother did mention that Hatanaka-san invited us to dinner tonight. I thought I would shower, change, and meet her there."

The punk on the ground muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "Momma's boy," which the other pretended not to hear.

After waiting a moment, he left. This prompted Kuwabara to yell at him indignantly.

"Hey, what if I died here?"

Kurama waved an unconcerned hand. "You'll live."

Just for that, he sulked behind the fox all the way to his house. He also searched Kurama's room while he was in the shower for incriminating objects. However, he was thwarted in his attempt at further punishment; not a single dirty magazine or notebook of mushy love poems. A promising outfit hung in his closet, but the argument about its girlishness was ruined by the pair of pants that accompanied it. He contemplated calling Kurama a geek because of the statuette he had found under the bed. It looked like one he had seen at a museum a while ago, and only nerds would collect copies of famous art.

Lounging on his bed, watching him attack his fluffy red mane with a brush, Kuwabara reflected that real men did not require blow-dryers for their hair. They did not run around with roses, either. Real men only possessed flowers long enough to give them to their girlfriends.

He had not realized training would be so hard. Urameshi had been pretty brief when telling him that oh yeah, we've been invited to a tournament, get ready like your life depends on it; it had been Kurama who stepped up and "offered" to work with him.

Was it just him, or did people stop being dead these days? Live people were so much more trouble than ghosts. Darn Toguro.

"Hey, you're a demon. Do you know what this tournament's all about?"

"Mm?" Kurama emerged from his closet, where he had been pawing through the clothes. "I've never actually gone myself, for… personal reasons."

Elusive, sneaky little… "You, but haven't you heard about it or something?"

He held up a tie, contemplating it. "Enough, yes."

They could only treat him like an idiot for so long. Kuwabara wanted some straight answers, darn it! He was not going to get himself killed training for an unknown reason. He imagined pulling the tie around Kurama's neck and throttling some satisfactory answers out of him.

"Just because I rush into things without thinking of all the details doesn't mean I like risking myself without a reason."

Kurama laughed softly, though he did not sound amused. "There is no reason."

"Then why," he yelled, glaring at the redhead's tie, "are we doing this!"

He tied the knot calmly. "You want a goal, Kuwabara? Then your reason is to keep your life. The Tournament is all about demon bloodlust. We've been 'invited' as guests as the most legal, and entertaining, way of seeing us killed."

"You act like you don't care."

"I'm confident in my abilities," he replied casually, "and there's no point in worrying over details I can't change."

Kuwabara stewed over this for a minute. So this was Toguro's revenge, and it was just treated like an afterthought to some bloody demonic game. There was not a single ounce of honor in this, not like street fighting or detective work.

"I could have done it, once," Kurama mused. "Gathered a team and participated in the Dark Tournament. We wouldn't have had to win the prize, necessarily, so long as we survived. Thieving between rounds would have been more than prosperous; most teams are funded by wealthy humans, the perfect victims. Pulled off correctly, it might have been one of our most famous heists."

Kuwabara yanked on Kurama's tie angrily. "How can you talk about this like it's nothing? Are you enjoying this? It's sick, and you're disgraceful!"

Kurama laid a calm hand over the irate boy's fist, loosening the cloth around his neck. "I said, 'once.'"

"Sorry," he mumbled. The whole Tournament idea had him on edge, and Kuwabara had snapped. He truly could not blame Kurama for not taking this seriously. Guiltily, he followed the other boy to the front door, feeling subdued.

Enigmatic and silent as ever, Kurama began walking in the direction of the fancy restaurant. He half-turned, calling over his shoulder, "No one ever said you couldn't find your own honor in this situation."

…
Owari
…

-Windswift