Hi…my first YYH fic. And there will be…yaoi. Can you guess the couple? No, it's not the typical Hiei/Kurama coupling, but instead—Yusuke/Kurama. Hehe, I always liked these two together. One-shot.

Disclaimer: Me don't own Yu Yu Hakusho, k?

.One.

As I talked animatedly with Kurama, I could feel Hiei's gaze on me. I flinched slightly when I dared to look at him—the utter anger and animosity was more than enough to make anyone run away in fear. Mind you, Hiei is already scary enough. Then as I turned back to look at Kurama, I saw him staring at Hiei with a certain glazed look in his eyes. Of course that was natural. Kurama adored Hiei and vice versa. Surprisingly, though, I felt a strange sort of pang in my heart and Kurama squeezed my hand, an enthusiastic look on his face. I forced myself to smile before I gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

"Go to him," I urged him. And he most certainly did not to be told twice as he stood up and walked across the room over to the short youkai. Immediately it seemed as if a spell was cast between the two—they stared into each other's eye and Kurama sat down next to him, placing his hand slowly over Hiei's. At that point, I turned around, trying to ignore the roaring sensation in my chest. Those two would be happy now. I stared at my hands and narrowed my eyes painfully. Yet somehow that thought didn't appeal to me. Standing up quickly, I headed out the door to get a taste of fresh air. Never trust Kuwabara to host a party ever again.

As I walked down the dusty path leading to the garden, I thought back to everything that happened to where I was now. The sweet scent of roses filled in my senses as I entered the garden and took a seat at the wooden bench in the middle of all the green life. I gazed at one particular rose with some dew on its petals and smiled forlornly. Kind of weird how things can evolve from just one afternoon…

It was one of the rare times we didn't have any case to work on and we were out in a nice secluded area near the mountains. Kuwabara was being his usual retarded self in trying to impress Yukina, who laughed innocently at all his antics. Botan watched him with an exasperated expression while Keiko looked torn between amusement and confusion. I myself was just lingering along a tree branch, which to this day still confounded me. Hanging out on trees was Hiei's territory—but then I guess I was in an odd mood that day. Kurama and Hiei of course were in their own little spot, the redhead leaning against a boulder with his eyes closed as if sleeping and the fiery youkai sitting on the ground, an intense look in his eyes as usual.

How those two even communicated was still a mystery to me but it was amusing to watch. Everyone knew of Kurama's liking towards Hiei except for the little guy himself. But then again, Hiei was never much of an emotional perceiver. I couldn't help but grin as Kurama said something to Hiei, who replied with a shrug. I eyed the look of exasperation on Kurama's face that he rarely put out and grinned. It was like watching a silent romance film except there was color. Heh, yeah my mind was weird.

But then the something even weirder happened—Kurama went up to me. In fact he practically abandoned Hiei and leapt to the branch I was perched on, a calm look on his face. Obviously he had put on his mask again and I smiled amusedly.

"Hey there, Kurama. Anything you need?"

Silence.

"I have something to ask of you."

Naturally, I was intrigued. Seeing Kurama so damn serious was too much of a jolt for my mind. Usually the guy smiled at least a little. "What's the matter, Kurama?" I asked. He looked at me quickly before darting his gaze elsewhere.

"This isn't very easy for me to say, but it's about…"

He then glanced quickly behind him and I got his point. "Hiei," I finished for him before leaning back against the tree. "Yeah, so when will you two hook up, eh? Or did you already and not tell me?" I remarked, eyeing him casually and grinning when I saw the glimpse of surprise cross his face.

"Well, I suppose it is a bit noticeable," he commented lightly. I rolled my eyes and wondered to myself where this was heading before Kurama suddenly leaned in closer to me.

"Can we go some place a bit more private?" he asked in a low tone, looking warily at Hiei's direction. I cocked my head to the side before shrugging. I was more or less still in puzzlement when I followed Kurama through the trees and into a small clearing quite distanced from the others.

"So what is it?" I inquired as we settled down on wooden log. Kurama just stared straight ahead as if in a daze and being the curious guy I was, I waved my hand in front of his eyes and said in my most annoying voice, "Kurama-san, tell me what's wrong!"

That pretty much woke him, though not in the way I wanted it to.

"Let me just think this through for a bit, Urameshi!"

Whoa. Big drawback. Kurama never called me by my surname and in such a harsh way, too. I was stunned into silence. So I waited patiently while my mind thought up of crazy reasons why Kurama would be so tense. He was usually such a conserved guy—save the times when we fought against an enemy. But I didn't think it had anything to with that. All I knew was that it definitely had something to do with Hiei. And that made me wonder even more.

"Well, you obviously know how I feel about Hiei. And I was wondering…if…"

Kurama was stuttering. Kurama wasn't looking at me straight in the eye. Kurama was scared! Somehow I managed to hold down my own amusement to answer his unspoken request. "What do you want me to do?" Inside, I was laughing beyond imagination. But then when Kurama looked at me dead in the eye, that laughter diminished and was replaced with seriousness. Now Kurama was not the type to really joke around with people. The way he looked at me was unlike any other way he usually looked at me. I was in shock.

"Urameshi Yusuke, would you go out with me?"

Wait, what! I was so completely stunned that I nearly fell off my seat. Hold on a second here. Didn't Kurama just say before he liked Hiei? Did he just ask me out? Was he hallucinating? Did he think I was Hiei! I was about to ask him to repeat what he said when he did it for me.

"Yes, I mean you, Yusuke," he said in that ever-so patient tone of his. It made me want to jump up and say, "No, you idiot! You want Hiei not me!" Somehow I managed to stay glued to my spot, though. For the first time in my life, someone managed to completely freeze my line of reasoning. I stared at Kurama and he stared back, probably waiting for an answer that I couldn't quite come up with.

"You—You want to go out…with me?" I finally managed to say. Kurama nodded at me quickly.

"Please, Yusuke. I know this may sound crazy, especially coming from me, but it's because I want to know Hiei's feelings for me. Most likely you're going to say he likes me but I want to know to what extent. What would he do if I started going out with someone else?" explained Kurama.

I looked at him in utter shock. "I…you…so I'm like a goddamn guinea pig for your experiment or something!" I cried out in a mix of anger and annoyance. I was in turmoil. My mind was a complete jumble. "This isn't like you, Kurama. If you like the guy so much, just ask him to go out with you! Trust me, Hiei likes you back just as much!" I exclaimed before looking at Kurama's sad expression.

"Why me? Couldn't you ask someone else?" I found myself asking desperately.

He just stared at me regretfully before answering. "I needed someone that Hiei was also close to, so the effect would be even greater," answered Kurama.

I glared at him. "You just sounded like some kind of sick bastard right there, Kurama. I never knew you would be this desperate. Are you really that afraid to be rejected? Because it's something everyone goes through in life, you know—you can't dodge it!" I said to him.

Yeah, I knew I was being cruel but that was seriously how I felt at the situation. Imagine one of your friends asking to go out with you so they could make the other…what, jealous? It was insane. I mean I never went out with that many people in general but I wasn't so low that I would agree to something like that. But in the end it was the broken and disappointed look that Kurama gave me that made me cave in. Kurama never showed his feelings like this. The fact that he was even daring to ask me to do this meant that he really did care about this a lot. So after a few minutes, I was nodding slowly in agreement and Kurama was grinning his widest at me.

"Yusuke, thank you."

Yeah, I was a fool. And that doesn't even begin to describe the following events.

TBC

Apologies on behalf of Kurama's OOC—he gets better as the story continues, trust me. Also, the story is told in Yusuke's POV in a sort of narrative way as you can tell. Eventually, the story will shift back to the original scene and be told in present time instead of in recollection. And if you did not understand that, don't worry. It'll become clear in due time…