A/N So, I wrote this because I thought that there was a severe lack in Kurama and Kuwabara fics. Kuwabara himself just doesn't get enough love, and then I remembered that Yusuke was asleep for three days after Maze Castle, and Kurama was there in Kuwabara's room with him when Yusuke awoke. That made me think that maybe the two of them spent that time getting to know each other since by the end of the anime they were fairly close. This will be three chapters long, one for each day Yusuke was unconscious. So here's what I think happened…

Hiei was very little help getting the two humans back to Living World. At first he had outright refused when Kurama, part in jest, suggested that he carry Kuwabara. He had to do a lot of placating and bribing to get Hiei to agree to carry Yusuke. He finally had slung him unceremoniously over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, while Kurama shouldered the taller boy over his back, precariously balancing him in a piggy back hold. All it had cost Kurama were several sparing matches, his promise to renegotiate their parole with Koenma, a few heists once their names were cleared, and all the "sweet snow" he could afford.

They had reached Kurama's house fairly quickly. Once Hiei deposited the unconscious detective on his bed, he disappeared, but not before raiding Kurama's kitchen for the gallon of ice cream kept in the freezer. Sighing, Kurama sat heavily in his desk chair. He took his school jacket off and the undershirt beneath it, examining his wound. It was still open and leaking crimson, the flesh, no doubt, ripped asunder by the constant running and fighting of the past few hours.

He began to clean his wound, carefully applying one of his favorite human herbs, Comfrey, also known as knitbone, to close it. He redressed into a tight-fitting button down green top, and began to mend his school jacket. This was the second school uniform he had damaged fighting demons in so many years. He really needed to remember to change into more appropriate attire before leaving for battle.

Resolving to purchase several new tunics, he continued to sew, gazing at Yusuke and Kuwabara, still out cold on his bed. He had placed them both there quite on purpose. Whoever awoke first would make a great scene for which he would be the very amused spectator.

He was not disappointed when, several hours later, his reading was interrupted by a loud curse of "Dammit, Urameshi," followed by struggling and a loud crash. Marking his place and setting the book aside, Kurama peered in entertainment at the heap of tangled sheets and limbs that was Kuwabara on his bedroom floor.

"Well, we must be feeling better," he said lightly, causing the boy, still disentangling himself from the bed coverings, to jump about a foot into the air.

"Geez, Kurama, give me a heart attack, will ya? I didn't know you were here…" he muttered, finally disengaging from the covers and standing shakily.

"My apologies, it was not my intention to startle you," Kurama replied, not managing to suppress a small smile.

Looking around and taking in his surroundings for the first time, his face growing confused, Kuwabara asked, "Where is here, anyway?"

"Ah, you are in my bedroom back in Human World. Hiei and I managed to get you and Yusuke here about four hours ago."

Kuwabara looked dubiously around the small room as if expecting the short demon to appear from underneath the bed, "Where is short stack, anyway?"

"Don't worry," Kurama laughed at this paranoid boy, "He left as soon as we arrived."

Kuwabara looked immediately relieved at this and continued, "I don't know how you deal with that punk."

Chuckling, Kurama answered, "You get used to him."

Kuwabara continued to look around the room, bemused. "Did you say this was your bedroom?"

"Yes," Kurama replied. No one other than his family members and Hiei had ever been in here before now.

"It's just so normal. I mean, you're a demon…" he faltered, losing confidence. He didn't want to offend, and he himself was very new to the idea of demons living among them. He seemed like a nice enough guy, but…

"Were you expecting blood stained walls, bone littered floors, and a dungeon torture chamber?" Kurama asked, teasing the uncomfortable boy.

Kuwabara stuttered nonsensical denials and shook his head frantically, truly worried that he had offended the demon in front of him. This only caused the usually reserved Kurama to burst out laughing, making Kuwabara freeze and stare disbelieving at the chortling demon.

"Forgive me, Kuwabara," Kurama replied, slightly breathless once his laughter subsided. "I forgot that you don't know me very well. I was merely joking."

Kuwabara looked immensely relieved to hear this, calming down considerably, but still seemed rather uncomfortable in the presence of this demon he barely knew.

"I was hoping that you would be able to take Yusuke elsewhere to recover. My mother would become suspicious if she were to come home to find a strange boy in her son's bed," Kurama stated mildly, breaking the uncomfortable silence that had developed.

"Oh, yeah, no problem…" he started then broke off, eyes widening. "Wait, demons have mothers?"

Kurama fought the urge to laugh again as the boy stared in amazement and perhaps even disgust.

"Most demons do in fact have a mother and a father, though asexual birth is not uncommon in the Demon World nor is cloning, but the woman I am speaking of is not my demonic mother," he explained simply, speaking slowly and clearly.

"Uhh, okay, I'm confused," those words brought Kurama back to the moment in time that he had told Yusuke his tale. When he had told him of his relationship with Shiori, he had said more or less the same thing.

"Why don't you sit? It is rather a long story," Kurama motioned for him to take a seat on the bed.

About to sit, Kuwabara gave a grunt, "Ugh, what time is it? I forgot I should probably check out the school and see how Keiko and Botan are…"

"It's six o'clock, and I could accompany you if you don't mind," Kurama offered graciously, fluidly standing from his chair. "We could talk along the way."

Kuwabara nodded at this, still ill at ease in his presence without the buffer of Yusuke.

"Perhaps, you want to borrow one of my jackets…I don't think people would look too kindly on you arriving to school without a shirt." He offered reasonably, taking out an oversized orange jacket that looked like it might fit the taller, broader boy.

Kuwabara frowned but seeing the wisdom in his offer, accepted the jacket in his outstretched hands and put it on. It was a bit tight, but not that bad. He zipped it up and nodded.

They took Yusuke to Kuwabara's house before setting off for his junior high. They didn't speak on the way there as the trip was short, and Kuwabara still couldn't think of a question to ask that wouldn't be offensive. No one was home at the Kuwabara household either, so their job was easy. Kuwabara assured him that his sister wouldn't find a beaten up Urameshi in his bed that out of the ordinary and that he would be okay there for as long as it took him to get back.

They set off, Kuwabara leading the way. Kurama decided to take pity on the poor boy, and he started off the conversation. "So you attend Sarayashiki Junior High with Yusuke?"

"Yeah," Kuwabara replied, happy with the innocent question.

"How did you come to meet Yusuke?" Kurama asked. "You and he seem close."

Kuwabara snorted at his last statement. "About as close as the earth is to the moon."

"Oh?" Kurama asked, surprised. They had bickered enough, certainly, but what was far more telling was the way Yusuke had collapsed when he believed his friend to be dead and had shouted to the world of its cruelty. Also, Kurama couldn't help but remember Kuwabara's desperate shout that he wasn't leaving this place without Yusuke and the way he threw aside Kurama's advice that it was unwise to give his energy and risked his own life to save Yusuke's. People didn't make scarifies like that if they didn't care.

"Well, Urameshi usually just pounds me into the pavement whenever I see him. It's always been a lifelong dream of mine to beat him one day," Kuwabara admitted, shrugging.

"How do you come to be involved with Spirit World?" Kurama asked. A simple schoolmate had no business confronting monsters recreationally.

"It all started when Urameshi died…" Kuwabara began. He proceeded to tell Kurama the rather lengthy tale of how Yusuke came to be the Spirit Detective. Well, how Yusuke had died explained a lot about the boy's character. It wasn't so unusual for him to risk his life to save a perfect stranger. For a moment, Kurama didn't feel quite so special.

"Then my premonitions got worse so I traveled to the psychic Genkai's compound to get her help. I got press ganged into competing to be her student, discovered the Spirit Sword, and got my butt whooped by a demon...it was the first demon I had ever seen. Yusuke ended up beating him…thanks entirely to my generous gift of spirit energy, and he trained with her for six months. I was with him when Botan explained the new case at Maze Castle, and I jumped right in. If I can use my powers to protect this world from evil then I will."

"That's very noble of you. If I'm to understand correctly, you are the only one among us who is doing this of their own volition. Yusuke must be Spirit Detective to live and Hiei and I are aiding him to avoid prison," he explained. He admired this boy's courage and heroism.

Kuwabara turned around to gaze openly at him at this, narrowing his eyes, he surveyed the demon. "Yeah, when you guys showed up, Urameshi called you "the thieves." He began suspiciously. "What did he mean, and why do you have 'community service'?"

"Ah, well, you see, Yusuke's first mission as Spirit Detective was to apprehend or kill Hiei and myself," Kurama sighed, still amazed at how everything had turned out. He and Hiei could be dead right now, or more probably he and Yusuke would be dead and Hiei would be on a killing spree.

Kuwabara sputtered at this revelation, suddenly looking alarmed at his companion. He muttered weakly, "You…you didn't…how did he…what happened?"

"Yusuke, being as inexperienced as he was, blundered through the case, and yet everything turned out all right in the end," he began simply.

Kuwabara nodded encouragingly, eager for the rest of the tale.

Kurama obliged. "Hiei and I raided the most guarded vault in Spirit World, King Enma's Darkness Vault. In it are items of immense power and evil, as you can imagine from the name. I was quite an accomplished thief once upon a time, and we succeeded in attaining them. Yusuke tracked me down, but I stole my item with pure intentions. I was to use it to heal my dying mother, but the item in question, The Forlorn Hope, would take the life of the wielder the moment the wish was granted…" Kurama paused here for dramatic effect, unable to resist his flair for melodrama, and it was such a good tale; it deserved a good telling.

"Well, what happened then?" Kuwabara was enthralled despite himself. He had stopped walking, a mark of his captured attention.

"Yusuke, as you have told me he often does, acted without thinking and risked his life to save my own. The mirror thought this noble so it took half of my life energy and half of Yusuke's. My mother was saved, so I gave up the mirror and allowed myself to be arrested."

"What about shorty?"

"Well, I was released on bail so to speak, and I came to Yusuke's aid. I took a killing stoke from the sword Hiei stole, and helped Yusuke clinch a narrow victory," Kurama explained.

"And he didn't murder you?" he asked, amazed.

Kurama inwardly flinched as he remembered his blood running cold as Hiei stared at him, not with anger as he had expected, but with hurt.

"We came to an agreement," he answered simply, not keen to go into detail. The memory of Hiei's rage was not so far gone, nor the hurt that his betrayal had caused. They would eventually bridge the gap that had separated them at this, but that hadn't yet happened. Kurama had gotten him out of jail, but he still needed to prove himself to earn back the reticent demon's trust after all he'd done. It was amazing he had received his trust in the first place, and he wasn't hopeful at the prospect of winning it back at all.

"Well, I'm glad it ended that way. We'd all be dead if it was just me and Urameshi taking on those Saint Beasties," Kuwabara acknowledged wisely.

Kurama laughed at this as they began to walk once more, silence again reigning between them. This time Kuwabara initiated a discussion. "So I noticed you wear the school uniform for that private academy in Mushiori."

"That's correct, I'm a sophomore at Meiou Academy," he supplied.

"I didn't know demons went to school," Kuwabara admitted timidly.

"They don't. I'm rather unique," Kurama laughed under his breath.

Kuwabara didn't press him further as they rounded the last two blocks and arrived at the school. The sight that greeted them was alarming but not surprising. Ambulances and police cars were lined up at the entrance, and Kuwabara immediately spotted Botan's blue head being bandaged by a medical technician.

Kuwabara waved at her as he neared, noticing Keiko at her side once he arrived at the ambulance.

"How ya holdin' up?" he asked the ferry girl who seemed to be the only one of the two who was injured.

"I'll be fine," she said inclining her head to Kurama by way of greeting. Kurama mirrored the gesture, his eyes sliding to the girl by her side. He remembered Keiko from when Hiei had captured her. Now, the leader of the Saint Beasts, Suzaku, too, had used her to get to the detective. It was a crippling weakness Kurama knew all too well.

"Hey, Kuwabara," Keiko whispered, still shaken by the events of the past day. She looked curiously at the redhead beside him.

"Hello, my name is… Kurama and I am a friend of Kuwabara's and Yusuke's," Kurama introduced himself politely, hesitating at giving his real name, but if she was going to hang around Kuwabara and Yusuke, she was bound to hear it from them eventually.

"Nice to meet you," she said as he bowed to her, causing a blush to creep into her cheeks. He tended to have that effect on the opposite sex…and sometimes the same sex.

"Hey, er...Botan. Can I talk to you a second?" Kuwabara asked tensely after Keiko explained that school was canceled for the rest of the week, leading Botan away from the two of them after she was sufficiently bandaged.

This left Kurama and Keiko in an awkward silence, both unsure of what to say to one another.

Keiko eventually broke the silence. "So, you're a friend of Kuwabara's and Yusuke's? You don't go to this school, how did you meet?"

He was spared an answer by Kuwabara's abrupt reappearance, cutting him off as he took a breath to answer, Kuwabara said, "He's also an intern at the detective agency!"

Kuwabara laughed uneasily at this, making Kurama question his ability to keep this secret. He knew why Spirit World insisted that humans not know about demons, but if she were to get seriously involved with Yusuke then keeping this a secret was virtually impossible. But who was he to judge people for keeping secrets from the ones they loved? He resigned himself to go along with this thin veil of a cover story. At the very least he could sell it much better than Kuwabara, it was, after all, partly true.

"Yes, that is correct. I had my doubts about Yusuke's abilities, but he has surprised us all," Kurama replied earnestly.

Keiko was about to speak, but she was interrupted by a member of Kuwabara's gang approaching them.

"Way to go, Kuwabara!" Komada shouted, "Look at that hottie! She your girlfriend, man?"

When he was feet away he raked Kurama with an appreciative leer, "You got a name, honey?"

Kuwabara watched in mixed horror and embarrassment as Kurama went stock still, lips a hard line, and eyes narrowed in menace. Moving quickly so as to avoid the death of one of his closest, albeit stupidest, friends, he quickly intervened.

"Stupid, he's a man," Kuwabara said simply, whacking him hard on the back of the head.

He watched with concealed amusement as Komada did a double take then turned a very unattractive shade of green.

"I'm hurt, you're not interested anymore?" Kurama supplied dryly in a deadpan that would have made Hiei proud. That was the last straw for Kuwabara, he burst out laughing.

Komada promptly fled, never once looking back. Kuwabara had never seen his friend move so fast, and he was on the track team.

"Sorry about that, he's a little…well…" Kuwabara began, embarrassed for him.

"Don't be," Kurama replied with a slight smile twitching at his lips. "I need to head back home, now, but if you don't mind, I'll come visit you tomorrow to see if Yusuke has awakened."

"Sure, no problem," Kuwabara replied. After their chat he felt slightly better in his company. He still felt unbalanced around the mysterious demon, but he would only get more comfortable with him if they spent more time together.

Kurama arrived home to find Hiei lounging on his windowsill.

"Is Yusuke awake?" he asked disinterestedly, but Kurama could tell he was interested purely because he had asked.

"Not yet, if I were to hazard a guess, I'd say he'd be out for the next two days at least."

"I see you've added another member to your fan club…" Hiei snickered, grinning evilly at Kurama.

"Tell me you weren't following us," Kurama groaned. He would never hear the end of this.

"Well, you were talking about me, so I had to make sure you didn't say anything…inappropriate." The excuse sounded lame enough that Kurama gave him a droll stare.

"Why, Hiei, if you asked me, I'd say stalking puts you firmly into the category of the president of my fan club." Oh how fun it was to tease Hiei, for he was much better at it than him, and the little demon was just so easy to nettle.

Hiei leveled a death glare at Kurama, but he had long ago become impervious to its effects.

"I'll let you know when Yusuke wakes," Kurama said, refusing to blink as they digressed into a childish staring contest.

"In the mean time, I believe you had promised me some fights…" Hiei began, eying his sword affectionately, "I do believe that I'll try to cut out that sharp tongue of yours."

A/N I'm assuming Meiou Academy (Kurama's school) is in Mushiori city because Kiatou lives in that city, and he goes to Kurama's school. So either one of them commutes or they both live in that city. I couldn't resist the Kurama is a girl joke and the Hiei is secretly in love with Kurama joke. Sorry! And thanks to the wonderful Reyka Sivao who gave me some notes on herbalism. What a convenient interest for a Kurama fan!