Author's Note: A brief synopsis. There are a lot of stories written about Kuwabara being the weakest of the team of spirit detectives and about his struggle to gain the respect of his teammates. What you see little of, however, is the perspective of those who admire him as a person and as a friend. For while Kuwabara might be equal to only an average demon, he is an exceptional human. And so, this is a story from the perspective of the three boys in Kuwabara's gang.

And because they are a little obscure:

Kirishima – the taller boy with light colored hair. In the manga he is the one with the attitude, putting his heel to the door of the teacher's office, his hands shoved carelessly in his pockets, wearing an impassive expression.

Sawamura – the boy with dark hair buzzed close to his head, almost always seen at Kuwabara's side at school. Laid back and friendly when not coming over disinterested, he has demonstrated a fierce loyalty to Kuwabara.

Okubo – the short statured, round-faced boy of the group with his black hair pulled back much like Yusuke's. We know that he has a single mother and a little brother and sister. He tends to wear his emotions on his sleeve more than the others.

Our Hero

by Swiss

We were your soldiers.

But not just soldiers, not just members of your gang. Also friends. Probably your only friends, the same way that you were the only real friend that any of us had ever had before we came together. Feh. None of us were exactly ready for real friendship before then. We thought we were trash, cast aside by the benevolent forces of the universe – the dredges that no one wanted or expected anything from. The world was an ugly, lonely place from our perspective, full of pain. None of us ever expected anyone to prove us wrong.

You were special.

You had eyes that didn't look past people. You had a smile and a kind word that encouraged, no matter who or what caused its being needed. You were a fighter in your heart, but your hands weren't ones that hurt by nature. They were more often on a shoulder or pounding a back then they were in people's faces, and even when your fingers were curled into fists, it was never out of any kind of malicious pleasure.

Kuwabara Kazuma was no bully.

You hated bullies. A defining statement, really, since 'hate' wasn't really a word that you tossed around carelessly. But you had a code, something better about you on the inside that drew us to you, that secured our loyalty. You were consistent. And you were honest.

You were our savior.

None of us had anything worth holding onto before we met you. Crumbling morals and even more unsteady homes and lives. All of us were falling before you found us and helped us make something of the rotten cards fate had shoved in our faces. We were lucky. Life sucks, and there were a lot of guys on the streets that weren't so fortunate as we were.

How you managed it was something to wonder over. In the end, we came to think of it as your gift. Tough guy though you were, you were a healer by nature. You fixed things. You fixed people.

Why?

None of us could ever find a good enough answer. Life was never crueler to anyone as it was to you. People were cruel to you, the very ones that you sought to save. How you could have such a heart for them was beyond understanding. Why would you want to help the ones who treated you so badly?

People saw you and though that they understood you. To some you were a clown, some stupid, clumsy idiot, stumbling for their entertainment and inciting their disgust. An embarrassment. We all heard the names they called you as well as you did. More than once we heard you chuckle, quoting them under your breath like you didn't care.

A lie. One of your few.

Others looked at you and flinched, seeing only the tough-guy façade, and called you a bully and a thug. "He'll be a criminal before he's eighteen," they'd say. But they couldn't have been more wrong. They never knew your heart, the blind bastards.

You weren't stupid, or a bully.

Even those who claimed to care about you couldn't get past your face, couldn't manage to really see you. We knew, because anyone who really knew you wouldn't call you weak. Yet they took one look and marked you off. Hopeless. Ugly. Weak and useless.

They were wrong.

Wrong, wrong.

We knew the real Kuwabara.

Sawamura

I was the kid that no one wanted to talk to – the kid at the side of the school yard with the clothes that were too big and the hair that was always dirty. I never had lunch to eat, or a friend to sit with. But I never had any money to steal either, so not even the bullies took any interest in me.

Not that there were a lot of real bullies after you got there. I never understood then why you hated seeing people picked on so much.

But maybe that's what first drew you to me. I was always showing up to school with visible bruises, no matter how I tried to hide them. Dark, painful shadow smothered my eyes, always. Long uniform sleeves, always. I never through anyone noticed.

But you had.

If I had been paying attention, I might have noticed your eyes on me that year. I might have, but it was a time when I saw little other than my own scuffed shoes. Knowing you how I do now, I know I shouldn't have been so surprised. When you set your mind on something, you got it or died, even then.

I'll never forget that day you approached me for the first time. It was lunchtime and warm enough that we were outside. I was sitting on the curb as far from the others as I could manage, looking desolately at the grass when your shadow fell over me. You startled me a little. We were only in the fourth grade then, but even for a ten year old you tall. But you crouched down in front of me before I could leap to my feet, and then I met your eyes for the first time. They were black and serious, as old and un-childlike as my own, but not unkind. They seemed to soften in intensity at my fear.

You pointed at my face, and grunted a question in that low voice of yours, "Whose beat'n you up?"

I must have blinked, because your brow knitted in frustration at my muteness. You tried again, patiently.

"I've been see'n you come in every day, look'n like you're getting your face bashed in. I've been trying ta find the ones who've been getting at you, but I can't catch em at it. So who is it? Tell me and I'll stop them from beat'n you up again."

Looking back, I think that you might have suspected what was really going on, but you didn't push, even when I sat there on that curb, gapping at you like a fish. You might as well have asked me the distance to the moon; I wouldn't have been any less astonished by the question.

"W-wh – " I stammered like an idiot. My next words were spurred by the panic that set in then, thinking of what would happen if you found out what happened behind closed doors. I think it was that fear that more than anything brought the anger to my voice. "I never asked for your help! Leave me alone!"

I would never, ever have expected your smile.

But smile you did, grinning at me as if amused by my gall, timorous and unfounded as it was. Maybe it was because you could already see through my defensiveness and knew it was just a plaster mask, as fragile as it was fake. You smiled. You grinned at me like we were buddies and pulled me to my feet by my collar. I must have flinched when you threw an arm around my shoulder and dragged me off with you, but you didn't mentioned it.

"Hungry?" you asked instead, and the casualness sounded so much like the question of a friend that I relaxed somewhat as we walked back towards the heart of the schoolyard.

I think you must have given me part of whatever food you had with you that day. I guess you must have, but I don't remember what it was. What I remember was sitting with you, sitting with someone for the first time. I remember you cracking some stupid joke, trying to shock me into a short laugh. Trying to coax more than five words out of me at a time.

When we were older, I asked you what made you do that. I was the kid no one wanted. I always had been. No one had ever glanced at me with anything other than vague, unbothered disgust. You could have left me there, and I wouldn't have given a second thought to it.

I didn't know then that you were going to change my life.

So I asked you why, but you just shrugged your shoulders like you always do, like it was no big deal. "When you snapped at me, I thought you had spirit. Figured that if you were someone like that, you needed to stop sitting on a street corner wasting your potential and do something."

You saw more in me that day then I saw in myself. Funny, but at the time I didn't really care. I just remember…how good it felt…to have a friend.

And you were my friend. Sure, I was still the same guy with the dirty, oversized clothes and battered appearance, but I was no longer the kind who sat alone on the corner by myself. Every time that I tried withdraw again, you were there to yank me back – usually literally. I lost track of how many times you caught hold of me around the neck with one arm and dragged me into some game, or to an arcade, or just to hang out.

I got used to you, got used to having you there. I got used to needing you. But then, sometimes I think that you were also the reason that everything else I had once born in resigned desolation became so unbearable. I was unhappy.

Life was bad at home. My mother had left years ago, and my father was less than pleased that I continued to be his problem. Then again, maybe it wasn't me. I used to imagine that was why she left him. Because he was so big, and yelled so loud – because his breath always smelled like some kind of alcohol, and because sober or not his hand fell hard and wild.

I think that you knew.

You must have known something, otherwise you would never done it. You wouldn't have wasted those shaded, concerned looks on me out of the corner of your eye when you though I wasn't looking. You wouldn't have stopped laughing or talking sometimes just to stare at me until I broke the silence uncomfortably.

You would have never bothered to follow me home that night.

He was angry because I hadn't been there when he got in. Because I hadn't been there, and because he had drowned himself in alcohol in the mean time. Because he was drunk, and he hated me. But mostly because I was there now, and I was more satisfying to break than any bottle.

Bottles don't cry when you break them.

I was only ten, but the memory of being so helpless still shames me, still makes me shudder. He frightened me. So big, and so angry. Yelling at me, cursing at me, slapping at the side of my head, pressing me backward into a corner while terrified tears ran mutely down my face. Reaching for his heavy belt, stumbling, curling it clumsily.

You never, ever get used to that fear. Pain can be tolerated. Torment can become routine. You can learn to expect the slaps and the words. You can even learn to count the bruises and angry welts. But the fear? That is always fresh. Who will make him stop this time? What limit is there to what he could do to you?

My back was to the wall, the corner, palms pressed against the peeling wallpaper. Nowhere to run. He raised his arm, so much bigger than mine, to strike me, to punish. But the blow never fell.

I've never seen you so angry.

To this day, I've never seen the same demon-like fury explode from your person the way it did then. Just as he raised his arm, the door swung inward violently on its hinges, slamming hard against the wall. The image of you there, standing panting so furiously in the doorframe with your fists doubled – it made my father hesitate.

Then his eyes narrowed, and he spat at you "Whater you doin' in my – "

His last words.

You rushed him, yelling, knocked him backwards with such force that he fell against the wall. He hit hard, but he was still so much bigger, even than you. I saw the absolute livid fire explode on his face. I think for a moment he lost all ability to recognize that the new boy attacking him was not me at all. He roared.

You dodged him at first. Where did you learn that, fighting? It would be long before I knew. You dodged him and tripped him, took advantage of his slobbering state, lead him away from the corner and the wall where I stood, shocked and trembling.

You didn't see the chair.

You slammed into it jumping away, making a pained sound when the contact threw you down, hobbled you for that single moment. It was all that he needed. He had you by the hair before you regained your feet. Yanked it, held it though you struggled.

Something snapped inside me then. I saw that belt fall as if time had stopped, coming down for the first time on a shoulder other than my own. On you. And I lost all control. Whatever dam had been holding in what I had suffered broke open like a gushing wound, and I screamed, running to throw my smaller body against his.

Too small to do much good. But it shocked him, threw him off balance. It made him loose his grip on you, just long enough. You arm came back, fist cocked. I heard the crack of the blow when your curled fingers collided with my father's chin. Stumbling, eyes rolling. Blood at his mouth.

He fell. Unconscious.

I was hysterical by that time, both from being discovered, and from utterly loosing control. I-I had hit my… He would k-kill –

"S-Sawamura, calm down." You were panting, trying to quiet me with a hand on my shoulder. "Yer okay. Come on, let me hel– "

With a wild cry, I swung at you with all the pent up anger and helplessness and fear. Eyes stinging, heart beating in frantic, fantastic pain, I threw all that in the form of my fist toward your face. I put my whole body into it.

Then, I stared at my fist caught in your hand, and let the tears roll down my face, brimming with my sense of vulnerability, my shame, and my long-time feelings of worthlessness. I looked at my hand, my fist. You had stopped me so easily. I was so weak.

You were looking at my fist too. Your serious eyes, still smoldering from the exchange, looked down at me. You spoke softly, nodding at my hand. "We can fix that."

As I stared at you in that moment, hurt and panting, more walls fell. What had been tears of terror now became overwhelmed moisture that rolled down my face in despair. I dropped, shaking, to my knees, covering my face with trembling hands. I cried.

"Hey," you whispered, crouching down beside me. Like so many times before, I felt you arm wrap tight around my neck, a farce of a headlock, a half-hug, as affectionate as you knew how. You sat there with me, rocking on the balls of your feet while I cried a lifetime of hurt. Your voice was quiet. "Hey…don't cry. I won't let him hurt you anymore. We can fix you. I promise, Sawamura. It's a promise."

I believed you.

From that night on, I never doubted you again.

You were always a healer, even if your ways were different. Learning how to fight is probably not what most would have thought I needed. But learning how to defend myself and my pride, that was what I needed. I remember how you knocked me off of my feet the first time you tried to teach me. It was painful. But then, I remember even more clearly the first time my own punch knocked you down. Laugh if you want to, but there was nothing more satisfying then to see your butt hit the pavement for once.

Its possible you let me hit you, but it doesn't matter any more. It doesn't matter.

What mattered was that things changed. Things got better. You taught me how to make sure that no one pressed me into a corner again, or towered dominatingly over me without a fight. However, the most important thing wasn't even the fighting. It was you. I lost count of how many times in the process of learning I ended up at your house in the middle of the night, begging for a friendly face. You never turned me away.

And you were always there, off and on, just watching.

It wasn't long before my father was scared of you. Sure, before long I had learned enough that he couldn't just thrash me anymore, but I'm pretty sure the only thing keeping him from taking a shot at me some nights was because he was afraid you'd see some bruise, some mark, and come after him. After all, by the sixth grade you almost as tall as he was, and had a reputation for loosing few of your fights.

I laughed myself to sleep the first night I came home banged up from a gang fight and he asked me what had happened so nervously, with such backward, self-preserving concern. I knew what he was thinking; he was afraid you'd blame him whether it was him or not.

So funny.

You did watch me closest when I went home beaten up from a fight – when new marks would be easier to hide. But then, you always seemed to know. Maybe someone else would have begrudged you for it, been annoyed since I had learned to take care of myself. But not me. How could I? Your eyes had saved me twice…no, dozens of times. It's nice to know someone's watching out for you, has got your back. It's nice to know that someone is looking at you, not past you, not for what you have, not to hurt. Just because.

Because you cared.

Okubo

My father left when I was just a little kid. I don't think that he and my mother were ever really married. I used to think that I was a mistake, when I would watch other kids with their families. I saw their smiles and their happiness and I wondered. I thought that I had been an accident.

Not so much of one, I guess, since my mother had two more children. I don't really remember the men. Just that they left before either of my siblings were born. My little brother and sister. It was just as well, really. We didn't need them. They were mine. And I didn't need anyone's help taking care of them.

At least that's what I used to say.

It's hard to take care of a family when you're so small. It's hard when your mother is sick or gone with strange men all the time so that she can't keep a job. It's hard when there isn't any money to feed them if you wanted to. It's hard when whatever you do manage to find vanishes almost instantly, sacrificed to hungry mouths and unpaid rent.

It didn't help that there were always strangers around.

It was hard to be the man of the house when there was an ever-fluctuating stream of other men coming in and out of our apartment on my mothers arm. Maybe if any of them had stayed more than a month it would have been okay. Maybe if any of them had cared about making a real family, or had been able to tolerate having tiny children underfoot.

As it was, we saw a lot of the inside of our room, with the door locked. It wasn't terrible. The boyfriends would shove, and mother would slap or shout. But mostly they just didn't want us around. Mostly we were just in the way. It was never more than bullying.

I knew a lot about bullies.

At school, I was the fat kid. More than that, I was the fat kid who came in late and left early because I had to get to whatever odd job that I had found the day before. I had to leave at lunch too, to go home and take care of my little siblings, make sure they ate something, to change dippers and sooth tears. People are cruel by nature, but there are no creatures more pitiless than elementary and middle school students.

It wasn't cool to be the kid who was always too busy and poor to go to the arcade, or even hang out at lunch. And so I found myself in more than one scuffle growing up, mostly by older boys who liked to pick on whoever seemed most defenseless at the time. I tried not to let it bother me. Tried to brush it off, the name calling and prodding, the same way that I tried to let the hurt my mother laid roll over my shoulder as well.

Funny how that never seems to work. The irony makes me laugh. Or maybe just cry.

It was because of the bullying that I first met you. It was my last year of elementary school, sixth grade. My little brother had started school just the year before, and as a tiny first-grader he struggled almost as much as I had with making friends. I looked out for him as best as I could, scaring off the smallest children.

But then, there was that one day.

I was going to check on him, give him a couple of coins as a special treat so that he could go play after school. I turned the corner just in time to see him fall, shoved to the dirt by the laughing boy three times his size. At least twice mine.

There was really nothing that I could have done. The jerk was my age at least, taller, stronger, meaner. The week before it had been me that had been on the ground. But my little brother was looking with dismay down at his soiled uniform, so carefully cared for since it was his only one. I saw his eyes well, cheeks already crimson with humiliation.

As the other boys behind their leader laughed with him, calling the kid they had just harassed a 'baby', my feet found their way over to them and I placed myself between them and by brother.

"Leave him alone," I demanded, glowering.

The casual, leering grin the other boy gave me was somewhat less than apologetic. He snatched up some of the front of my shirt, giving me a yank that pulled me out of my tough guy stance. He stuck his fist in my face warningly. "Say something, fat boy?"

I hadn't yet managed to squeak out some kind of semi-dignified response when another voice broke in suddenly. "Okiiyoseki!"

It was strange to see the big boy flinch at the sound of his own name. Somehow, he managed to press his face into an ugly sneer and he let me go, turning slowly to face the voice. He spat on the ground, but some of the coolness he had possessed towering over me disappeared. "Kuwabara," he greeted, shoulders tense.

And there you were.

I remember how my eyes widened. Sure, I knew who you were. I'd even seen you, from a distance. But then, from a distance, it was hard to tell just how tall you really were. You stood there, looking down on us with eyes that seemed to pour out annoyance and abhorrence all over the bullies. At your side, another boy watched with dark interest in his eyes. Sawamura.

Your gaze flicked to my little brother, who was looking up at the giant that was you with enormous black eyes full of awe and still slightly wet from the tears he had shed. Your eye twitched, "I think I told you, Okiiyoseki; I don't like bullies."

The boy managed a nervous smirk. "Common, Kuwabara. We're just talking to our buddy." He reached for me, but I pulled back, helping my brother to his feet and scowling.

"You're 'buddy' doesn't seem to want to talk to you," you said, nodding to me. "Maybe you should just get lost and leave him alone, hm?"

It was amazing how quickly they scattered, growling and muttering, but offering very little real fight. After they were gone, you looked at me straight. "That was cool, the way you stuck up for the kid," you said, pointing to my little brother. The semi-impressed look on your face thunderstruck me.

I stammered intelligently. At my feet, my little brother tugged at my pants, staring in at you amazement. Then you grinned, chuckling. "He seems as talkative as you are, Sawamura."

The dark haired boy responded with a small smile. "You seem to have that effect on people."

The way your eyes flickered at that comment, I wasn't so sure that it pleased you. "So, what's your name?"

It was my little brother that answered, "Okubo," he said eagerly, and then he added, "You would like him."

Seeing past my mortification, you just laughed, winking at him, "I think I already do."

I saw a lot of you after that. Whatever I had done to impress you brought you around me, which effectively stopped my bully problems. You were always friendly, never unkind. At the time, I was in still in awe of you, really. I was astonished that you would hang out with someone like me. But then, I just didn't get it. I didn't get it.

I didn't realize…

And I was busy. Things were getting worse at home. Money was incredibly scarce, and the payment for our apartment was coming up more quickly than any amount of emptying garbage or running errands could earn me in so short a time.

So I got desperate.

It was the day that the bills were due, and we still needed more than half. The sun was falling on my chances of paying, and I eventually collapsed onto the curb of the street in despair. My head rung with the consequences. We would loose the apartment. We would loose it. Then where would we go?

We hadn't eaten that day either. I would go home for the last time to cries of hunger. My mother would be angry, she would cry. She was sick, always sick. I thought, would I be able to take care of her without a home? It was then that I lost the last hold I had on my pride. My face flushed just thinking about it, but they were counting on me.

Desperation kills morality every time.

My plan was simple. There was a small convenience store that sold groceries and sweets. A lot of young people went there to ogle over the products and harass the owner. It was always busy. When I was there before, I saw that sometimes the register got left open.

That night I wandered in to the store with my head down, eyes darting to the older man that ran the story. There was a group of younger students occupying him, pointing out some treasure at the top of a high shelf. He didn't even notice me when I loitered near the front, making my way to the cash drawer. It was open. So easy that it stung even worse, to take advantage.

Images of my mother and my siblings behind my eyes, I reached in timidly, fingers pressing around a fold of bills. My heart was in my throat. Almost. Almost.

And then the word came crashing down.

"Thief!"

The man's clear voice shouted with all the anger that could have been expected. He had left the aisle with the children, was running toward me. The door was so close. My fingers closed, clinching the money. And I ran. I ran and ran, out the door and down the sidewalk, the storekeeper right behind me. I didn't notice the blur of orange hair as I whizzed past on the street.

"Stop!" The storekeeper shouted from the door of his store. "I'll call the police!"

Police. It stopped my heart. I almost halted right then, almost. But then, I heard a familiar voice. You. It was you. How did you manage to be there right when I needed you? "Hey, you don't need to do that," I heard you say as I rounded a corner. "He's my friend. I'll pay you back for what he took."

Nothing was like the guilt I felt as I ran off, ran when I should have come back. I found an empty ally and fell against the wall, sinking to the ground, panting and lost. I pulled the money out of my pocket and just stared at the crumpled bills in my hands.

So guilty. Not even the disgusted looks my mother's boyfriends ever gave me compared to the look of sad betrayal that I imagined you must have had on your face. I just looked down at that money, and became sicker and sicker. I wanted to cry. What had I done?

But I couldn't give back the money. Our need was too great. That very night turned over all of it, including my savings for the month, to our building manager. I had bought one more month. One more month to scrap by.

I managed to avoid you in school for two days by sticking mostly to my classes and leaving before the bell. When you finally caught me on the third day, it was by intercepting me as I cut through a narrow pass between buildings. "Okubo." I think I must have been shaking, because you tilted your head strangely. Something sad seeped into your eyes. "You don't really think that I'm going to hurt you, do you?"

Pain flooded me. "I-I didn't mean…it wasn't w-what I wanted," I stammered, knowing that no excuse would hold with you. I knew what you thought of stealing. Everyone did. But you had taken the heat for me, had called me 'friend', even then.

"Hey, everyone makes mistakes," you said quietly. "I know that things are tough, but if you need help, all you have to do is ask." It was the last thing that I expected you to say. Or maybe the next thing was. "Do you want to talk about it?"

My fortifications fell. I spilled out my guts about home, about my mother, my siblings, the men, the money. My eyes were stinging by the time I was done, all the stress finding a place to flood from where it had been so pent up. You were silent when I finished, and sat there beside me against the wall while I just chocked and sniffed.

"I'm s-so sorry – " I tried to say

But your hand came down hard against my shoulder. "Nah, Okubo. 'S okay. Sounds like you're in a little over your head."

I nodded miserably.

"Come on," you said then, standing and pulling me up with you. You lead me off into the street, heading to some unknown destination. When I tried to ask where, you just shook you head. "I hadda talk with someone about you. You'll see."

When we arrived, my eyes widened. To my horror, we were standing in front of the same store that I had robbed only days ago. Foreseeing my fear, you had a handful of the back of my shirt, keeping me from running. You took me straight up the old man who was sweeping the threshold of the building. He looked up when you approached. I saw the recognition in his eyes when they fell on me.

"Betsuno-san. Okubo here, he needs a job." You spoke casually, as if you weren't addressing the man that I had formerly stolen from. "He's a bit desperate for money. I though you could help him out."

The man looked almost as incredulous as I felt, but he didn't say anything yet. There was something like respect for you in his eyes, and I remembered that you had paid him back what was stolen from him. Judging from his eyes, I hadn't been the only one affected by that act. His eyes turned quietly to me, a stern expression on his face.

The guilt flooded again, and all at once I realized that you were giving me a chance to make right on what I had done. Pulling free of your grip, I bowed deeply to the man. My voice cracked with remorse. "P-please, Betsuno-san."

As if he knew my sincerity, the man honored me with a moved smile. He took my arm and lead me away from you, into the store. "Okay, son. The first things you can do is work off the money you took. After that, we'll see."

My mother cried when I told her about the job I had gotten.

Things got easier. What had once been so overwhelming suddenly began to fall into place like pieces of a puzzle. It wasn't the end of a hard road, but then, I wasn't alone anymore either. You were a friend. Even after I had betrayed you, left you to take the blame for my crime.

Come to think of it, I never did pay you back that money. But then, you never asked for it either. I never knew how you managed to pay as much as you did. It wasn't like you and your sister were living the high life. I know things were tight for you too. But you never asked for it back.

You were always one to sacrifice for others.

You're selfless.

Kirishima

When I met you, it wasn't like the others. We didn't meet as friends, and there was no period of liking of disliking you. You came into my life like an explosion of light – abrupt, violent, and earth shattering. Heh. Like always. I will always think of you that way.

I wasn't sweet, gentle Okubo trying to take care of his family. I wasn't even some kid like Sawamura, whose life was hell but, hey, he was still no criminal. I was a criminal. I was a thick-skinned punk who hissed at pain for being so common and spat at the sunrise because another day meant another breath wasted in a life that I despised.

There was no reason at all for you to save me.

It was my brother who put me up to it. He was older than me, a junior in high school – a full five years my senior. There was no father in the picture. Hell, I'd never have known him even if I meet him. My brother used to call me gutter spawn. I never had any reason to doubt him.

His gang was no selfless, defender-of-the-school prototype. They weren't out to look tough. No, these weren't boys, and they weren't playing games. Or at least the games they played were set on stakes that killed. My brother was the one who pushed me into it. I think it was a joke at first, since I was so young. I don't think that he actually meant for me to be accepted.

Funny how innocently the worst parts of your life begin.

I was running with them for almost half a year when it happened. There really wasn't much left of me then that was childish. You once told me that the first time you looked at me, my eyes radiated smothering darkness. I was the youngest, the goat – everyone's toy to play with. This wasn't a gang of friends; it was a hierarchy and a death trap. They beat their own as often as anyone else.

That night…

I still have nightmares sometimes. Too much alcohol passed around, too much pent up bloodlust. I hadn't brought in my dues that day. It was a stinging failure that my brother had already left me limping from even before.

Ugly, glaring eyes like ice and fire condemned me. Casually pulling hands out of pockets and crunching knuckles. It was supposed to be a punishment. The restless, maddened drunkenness made it more. I didn't even see the iron that smashed into my side, or the hands that grabbed me up and literally threw me into the side of the brick wall. Streams of cursing so foul that it would have burned a more innocent person's ears. The boots that fell loosed a rib, bruised deep. And didn't stop.

They would have killed me that night. Even – even my own brother…

I was close to unconsciousness when you showed up. What the hell were you doing there? It was a nasty part of town. It was dark, dangerous. Did you hear the cries from the street as you passed? Were you stuck with some strange notion to go looking for trouble that night? Alone?

Or was it fate.

Not that it mattered.

I heard rather than saw you when you busted in. Blood was in my eyes, coating my face like a vivid veil. I heard the break in the relentless beating, the shift in the direction of the blows. I heard the cries of surprise and outrage. Groggy, dizzy I blinked, trying to see through the red haze. I saw shoes, standing in front of me, spread solidly. Defending me.

Brother, I though. My brother was defending me.

Wrong. My real brother would have let me die.

You must have fought them. Heh, likely thrashed them. You were like a blur in my distorted vision – an explosion. I heard their shouts for revenge, the injured shouts of the stuck. Cursing you, promising you pain in the near future. But in the end you drove them off and they left, too slobbering stupid to take down a fighting demon with perfectly clear senses and an outraged sense of justice.

Once they were gone, the shoes turned and knelt beside me, fingers prodded carefully at my wounds, my ribs. You helped to wipe some of the blood from my eyes. I must have hissed some half-hearted threat at you, because you gave me a shake and returned a hot insult to my stupid, groundless pride.

There was no reason for you to save me. Why on earth did you save me?

You pulled me off the ground and over your shoulder with some effort, grunting and muttering irritably. I struggled, but my efforts were pitiful at best. My good arm was broken, body beaten, half blind. Ignoring my curses, you carried me back to your home. Bandaged me up as well as you could for the night and talked to me steadily until some of my senses came back.

No one in my life had ever helped me before.

I had no idea what to think of you. Even when my head had cleared and I sat there limply on your kitchen floor, leaning against the wall while you put some temporary bandage on my arm, all I could do was stare at you. I didn't know enough emotions to find the right one for the situation, so hatred and anger boiled in their place and festered in the wordless silence.

"They looked too old to be you friends," you finally said, shattering the silence.

I growled, "'S my gang."

I think you meant the last painful jerk of that bandage to hurt. Maybe to remind me of what had just happened. "They might have killed you. They didn't look like they were interested in stopping any time soon."

Stubborn, angry. "They're my gang." But the pain was only too real now. My whole body throbbed, so that all I wanted was to curl up into myself and shake until it passed. Maybe die. A shudder passed through by broken body, and I chocked on a tiny moan of pain.

You looked at me quietly, dead serious. "You could do better."

"I haven't got anyone without them!" I snapped through the nightmare. Not anyone, I thought. Without them, I was alone. The agonizing attention had become an antidepressant. It let me forget that there was nothing else. "They are my gang!"

"Idiot." You blinked at me, eyes flashing, challenging.

'I don't have anything else.' The thought was one of defeat, and it brought my delusion to a shuddering halt. I sat there in kind of a stupor. Not…not even my brother had cared.

You.

How did you always have the right words?

"Maybe you need a different kind of gang."

You're gang was different. So different it startled me.

I met Sawamura and Okubo. Saw the way that you treated them, that they treated you. I thought it was a joke. That is, until the first time my old gang came around, looking to get you back for their defeat. The three of you, alone, were enough to drive them off. That was the end of my connection with them. My brother, he spat at my feet before he left with them.

It was the last time I saw him alive.

The darkness lingered inside of me. What I had seen, experienced, it wasn't going to go away. But, it was hard being around people who didn't promise hurt with every look and touch, who called you by your name, who fought for your honor and safety, and not have something change.

I changed.

You were always the leader, unquestioned. I didn't know the stories of the others then, and they didn't know mine. But we all had something in common. We all had you to thank for some portion of our lives or hope.

For me, it was my very life.

Your rules were different, never enforced with fists but somehow just as absolute. They were the first set of absolutes that I had ever learned. But then, everything good I ever learned, you taught me. I remember all the things you used to say. We're not bullies, you said. Bullies pick on the weak because they haven't got the courage to fight their equals. Never touch a girl to harm. Keep your word, always. Defend each other, always. After all, you said, if we don't, who will?

You were a strange apparition to me, and I'll admit that at first I had my doubts about your sanity with your honor and your code. But, man, somehow you pulled it off, and watching you made it real for me.

Here's the real slam of fate, though. The real reason that I say you saved me.

Less than a week after you dragged me out of there, my old gang was arrested. Every one of them. Well, almost every one. The cops said that they went too far, beat another of their members to death. That member was my brother.

I sat on my bed the night that I heard, staring at the wall like a zombie. My mother was upset, livid or sad. I don't know which, they were always so close with her. I didn't even move when she threw something against my door, shattering it against the other side. I just keep thinking it could have been me. It would have been me less than a week ago. Jail, or death. I might have been dead. I should have been dead.

You knew, the next time I saw you. I think everyone did, because the looks people gave me were so disgusted. Everyone knew that I had been a member of that gang. They all knew that that was me less than seven days before.

You didn't look disgusted.

When I walked up to you, staring dully at my shoes in some kind of shock, I was expecting that – disgust. I expected your disappointment. I expected you to say, 'I don't want people of your kind in my gang.' I think, with the loathing in my heart for myself, the loss I felt, I wanted you to say something like that.

But you surprised me. You always surprised me.

If I had been Okubo, you would have slung an arm around my shoulder and patted my back while I cried. If I were Sawamura, you would have hugged my neck and offered comfort in the form of jokes and assured friendship.

I'm not like the others.

How did you always have the right words?

"I'm sorry," you said, and you eyes were sad and full of compassion. I realized that you were talking about my brother. It caught my breath in my throat, to hear you say it. No one else would mourn my brother. No one else would offer a sympathetic word to me about his death.

No one else would have saved someone like me.

I guess I should be thankful that you weren't just anybody, eh, Kuwabara?

There were those that thought even we could have done better than you. You – the one at the bottom of the class, who attracted and invited fights. There were people who actually told us that we would have been better off without you.

Yeah right. Heh. Yeah right.

In who else would we have found someone who cared about us enough to risk his skin, who'd always be at our backs. More than that, you never treated us as anything other than your friends and equals. There was no struggle with you to earn what you gave so freely – you attention, affection, and trust. We were a team. Yes, we were a team. We thought that nothing could ever touch us. Together, we thought, we could take whatever crap life threw at us.

But. But then things changed.

Urameshi.

Sure, he'd always been in the picture before. For as long as we could remember you always had some unearthly obsession with beating that guy. It made you wild just thinking about him sometimes. To be real honest, it scared us all to see you like that. Nobody else wanted to be near Urameshi – he just wasn't human, the way he fought. No one could be that strong. We all thought that he'd kill you one day, but you just wouldn't stop.

None of us would have ever, ever expected you and him to become friends. I mean, you two seemed to hate each other. He beat the crap out of you. And then one day…

He started hanging out with you. The ugly looks disappeared, the fighting stopped that we could see. You two would just disappear from school for days and days and no one would know where you went, and then you would come back in terrible condition.

The first time you came back with your arm broken we were ready to kill. But Urameshi was gone. And when he finally did come back, you wouldn't let us near him. You were happy to see him. The friendly, welcoming smile that all of us had come to expect was suddenly extended to the enemy. We were flabbergasted.

It started off as simple jealousy.

Sure, we'd all come to you at different times, but we were a group. We were a gang. Urameshi had always been a loner. What words he deigned to anyone were short and pointed. His time was not for normal people. We all knew there was no earthy way that he would be content to join our group. It would be Kuwabara, Sawamura, Okubo, and Kirishima.

Or.

'Or.' Such an ugly word.

Or Kuwabara and Urameshi. And that's the way it was. You were with us, or you were with him. It ticked us off, made us jealous. We weren't used to having to share you.

But then the jealous left for deeper worries.

All of a sudden, you started to change. You were still the same guy with the same heart and same code, but whatever you did while you were with him, it started affecting you. It showed in your eyes, which had always been too old for your face. Now they looked ancient, as if they were struggling with secret demons.

Some of your confidence left you. The clumsy ease of movement that had been your trademark became guarded, self-conscious. You had always fought obsessively, but now the habit of training and pushing yourself bordered close to harmful.

Kirishima and you had always bantered with each other playfully, tossed around insults and shoves. Then one day he opened up the game as usual, throwing out a good-natured 'weakling' at you, a slur that to us was so laughably inaccurate a description of you as to actually be a poor attempt at a insult.

You froze.

None of us had ever seen you stiffen like that over a derogatory word. You'd heard them all so many times before from others, and as far as between us, it was an old game. You shouldn't have hesitated like that. You should have just laughed and given a good smack over the head and returned the favor.

But it was only a symptom of the real problem.

We really didn't even begin to understand until we met the new group of friends that you were hanging out with. They came to school one day, looking for you and Urameshi. They were strange, with an alien feeling that even we could feel. One of them, a short, dark haired boy with eyes as cold as ice walked up to you with an annoyed and repulsed glare that would have peeled paint.

"We have a mission, fool," he said.

The three of us bristled at the stinging affront, teeth setting in anger.

But you just got up, nothing on your face. You were used to it. It was normal. I think that shocked us all. You were our leader. You were strong. And now you were at the tail end of this new group, the looser, clown, and weakling. And you just left with them.

As time passed, you seemed depressed and quiet. "I'm fine, guys. Nothing's wrong," you told us more than once, laughing off our concern.

Funny how things change. In the beginning it was us who needed you. We were the ones falling. But now? Now it's you. You're falling. Every day it's worse. We're worried about you. We want to know what's going on…

- It's that pig, Urameshi.

- Settle, Kirishima. We don't know for sure that it's Urameshi.

- Everything started once Urameshi started messing with him. I don't know what he and those other jerks want with Kuwabara, and I don't care! Don't you see the look on his face when he comes back from hanging with them?

- I tend to be more preoccupied with the bruises.

- Shut up.

- Kirishima…

- Shut up! Do you think I'm just going to sit around watching them hurt him forever? He doesn't deserve it!

- No, no he doesn't. But just getting angry isn't going to help. It's not like their dragging him off involuntarily.

- How do you know that? Did your father ever beat the crap out of you 'voluntarily?'

- …That was across the line, Kirishima.

- Stop it, you two. What would Kuwabara say if he heard you?

Something's wrong.

Something's very wrong, Kuwabara. Something's wrong with those people. They're hurting you in more ways than one. It's more than coming back hurt. It's coming back with more and more of your spirit missing. We can't remember the last time we saw you smile in that careless way of yours. Why won't you tell us what's wrong?

- I'll kick their butts into the ground!

But you wouldn't let him if he tried. Why? You'd never stand by while someone was hurting us. We want to do something. You're falling, and there isn't anything we can do.

Love is a funny word. Can be used in a bunch of different ways. You would probably laugh to hear us say that – that we love you. But it's true. One way or another, you were ours. Our friend, our leader. We were supposed to be a team.

- I want to save you from having to listen to their crap. I'm tired of seeing that look on your face.

- I want to protect you, watch out for you like you looked out for me.

- It just isn't fair.

We don't understand why you stick with them. It just doesn't make sense, when you've got us to come back to. Why don't you just leave them? Its not like you're out saving the world or anything…

Listen, Kuwabara. We don't understand. But we'll be here for you when you need us, hold you up when those jerks shove you off your feet. After all, you were always there for us.

We don't care what anybody else thinks of you. We know you, and to us you're something special. You were the open door when we had nowhere else to go. You were the warm hand and the words that comforted without making us feel pitied on the loneliest days. You were the unassuming arm around our shoulder that showed you cared without taking our dignity or hurting our pride. Yours were the eyes that saw us.

You were ours.

Our leader. Our friend. But from first to always…

Our hero.