Notes: This story mentions events from several different points in the YYH timeline, so please be warned of general spoilers.
Disclaimer: Yoshihiro Togashi made them so much fun to write that I couldn't resist.
Reading Between the Lines
He hadn't asked the question at first because, well, at first he thought Genkai was a creepy old bitch and he hadn't really doubted that if a demon won her test she'd teach him. A few months later he knew her a little better. A few months later he knew for a fact that she was a creepy old bitch, but he was starting to doubt that she'd give a demon world-ending powers.
"Would you really have taught Rando?" Yuusuke gets around to asking one day, pretty much out of the blue because he'd been thinking about the lousy vampire movie he'd watched the night before, which made him think of the creepy bat things in the woods behind the temple (mostly dead now, after he and Kuwabara had spent all that time training out there) and that made him think of Genkai's test.
"I had given my word that whoever won the test would become my new apprentice." Genkai's sipping at her tea like they're talking about the weather.
"Huh," Yuusuke says and they don't talk about it again for a while.
He asks her again, after the Tournament, because now he knows that she's a tricky, creepy old bitch, and he's determined not to take anything she says at face value anymore. "Would you really have taught Rando the Spirit Wave? Even after what he did?"
Genkai's sitting cross-legged on the porch with her eyes closed, maybe meditating, maybe just enjoying not being dead anymore. It's hard to tell with her. "I promised to teach whoever won," she says. "I never said the winner had to be a nice guy."
"Yeah," Yuusuke says. "But he killed ninety-nine people." Almost a hundred, but like hell he's going to admit it's the one Rando didn't succeed in killing that riles Yuusuke the most.
"Next time," Genkai says, "I'll be sure to be more specific."
He thinks about that for a bit, and forgets about it completely in the wake of Koenma's abduction, Yakumo's attempted invasion and the whole Sensui thing.
Sensui is what gets him started thinking about it again. Yuusuke finds he's doing a lot of thinking lately, about a lot of things. It's easier to focus on the Rando thing than on his rebirth, or Sensui's insanity, or the unnamed (but strangely haunting) horrors of the Black Tape.
And anyway, he's still pretty sure she wouldn't really have done it.
"I don't think you would have taught him," Yuusuke says one day. He's dropped by with no warning, which isn't unusual, but Genkai never looks surprised to see him.
"Is this the Rando thing again?" she asks, setting down her tea cup with a sigh.
Yuusuke's learned a thing or two in the last year. He's learned that he's not as smart as he thinks he is and that being strong isn't worth your soul. He's learned that the really dangerous monsters are the ones you can't see. He's learned that Kuwabara and Kurama are evil sons of bitches who should never ever be allowed to join forces if the world is to remain safe. He's learned that just because someone says one thing, doesn't mean they aren't saying another.
"You'd have taken him as your apprentice, I get that." He sits cross-legged across from her.
"I'm impressed," Genkai says. "I only had to tell you seven or eight times. Your comprehension skills are improving."
Yuusuke nods sagely. "You promised to teach him. But you never made any promises that he'd survive that training, did you?"
They're both quiet for a moment as Genkai sips her tea and Yuusuke pretends not to know that it's really sake.
"You're learning," Genkai finally says.
c&c always appreciated.