Disclaimer
The fictional characters, settings, events, and other such elements portrayed herein are based upon the anime Yu Yu Hakusho, originally a manga series created by Togashi Yoshihiro-sama—the coolest mangaka alive!—and adapted to the small screen by Fuji TV in Japan and FUNimation Entertainment in the U.S. No copyright infringement is intended.

A/N
Why did I even bother typing that overly formal disclaimer? (This is so obviously my first YYH fanfic, isn't it?) Oh, yes. It is—even if I first watched YYH twelve years ago…! (Well, it took me this long to find the time. And yes, I am old. XD) And because this is my first attempt at YYH, please go easy on me. Happy reading! ^-^

THE KURAMA WHOM KURAMA NEVER KNEW

1: The Weirdest Gardener Ever
Alternative Chapter Title: Swiss Army Knife

"Shuuichi," summoned the gentle, soft-spoken Minamino Shiori from the living room. "Please come down."

Kurama raised his nose from the book that he had been reading since high noon, after lunch. "Hai, 'Kaa-san," he called out towards his bedroom door. He rose from his desk, took his gray coat off the hook by the door, and softly treaded downstairs.

The staircase led to the first floor of the humble Minamino home, where he caught familiar sight of a warm maternal hand on the shoulder of a raven-haired boy in his teens.

"Shuuichi, would you mind going with Shuuichi-kun to his first day of guitar lessons?" Shiori lovingly smiled at her older biological son and turned to face her younger stepson of the same name. "You were asleep in the car when we went there last time, so I'm afraid you might get lost if you go there by yourself now."

"Electric guitar, 'Kaa-san!" corrected the younger Shuuichi, clutching the handle of a black guitar case on one hand and waving his stepmother's worry off with the other. "There's a big difference between that and the lame ordinary one. And I'll be fine! Shuuichi-'nii-san doesn't have to go with me. I know how to get there on my own!"

A thin smile curled Kurama's lips. Anything for his family. "Now, now, otouto, I really should accompany you. For your safety, and for 'Kaa-san's peace of mind."

Just as his stepbrother opened his mouth to speak, Kurama continued knowingly. "You don't want your new classmates to see that you have a 'bodyguard,' right? They don't have to see me, then. I'll still be at the park when you're done."

And just as he promised, there he was, sitting on a wooden bench in Yukimi Park on a windy Sunday afternoon. Dotting the pale sky were cotton candy-like clouds, hungrily torn from their spool by an excited sweet-toothed child. From the corner of his eye, he could make out the entrance of the music school wherein his stepbrother was now acquiring the fundamentals of the electric guitar. Which is just as well, he thought. Just in case he leaves class early.

His stepbrother was fifteen now, going on sixteen in the summer. But his protectiveness of his family—including his stepfamily—was already instinctive to him. He may still be the most infamous and feared thief in all of Makai within the human body of a now high school graduate, but there was no doubt about it: he yearned for their safety naturally, shamelessly. Was it out of love for them? Or was it a means to keep everything under his control?

After all, Kurama detested surprises—unexpected phenomena which, given their nature of being unexpected, he was unable to plan for several steps in advance. An accident or tragedy befalling any of them would be a threat to him—because they were family… because he had failed his own lofty expectations of himself…

He was a living contradiction: selfless to satisfy his own ego.

Suddenly he sensed danger hanging heavy in the air. Right then and there, in the park. Loud cries erupted from the playground.

"Come on! Gimme all the money you got!"

"I don't want to!"

"You talkin' back at me, huh, little boy?"

"He said he doesn't want to. Leave him alone."

"Shut up if you don't wanna get hurt, princess!"

"Just cough up your money already!"

"No. You don't have to do as they say."

Threats. Resistance. A confrontation, no doubt. His protective instincts taking over him, Kurama raced to the source of the voices.

He spotted three teenage boys towering over another boy and a girl on the swings. The lanky one sporting a navy blue cap backwards—the leader of the pack, construed Kurama—brandished a pointed object that glittered in the sunlight.

As he ran, Kurama was tacitly debating with and against himself whether he should draw out his Rose Whip to use against the rascals. After a split second of thought, he decided that his whip was too dangerous for the situation at hand. Even if they are in the wrong, they're just misbehaved boys, he told himself mentally. One careless move from any of these young ningen may result in needless bloodshed.

"Your mouth will be the death of you, bit—"

And before the wielder of the knife could graze his intended victim, Kurama seized the bully by his armed wrist.

The three whirled to find a young man in his late teens or early twenties with untamed hair the color of blood and the most merciless eyes that theirs had ever beheld.

"You've caused enough trouble here." Even the man's guttural alto was undeniably experienced in giving threats. Lethal ones. "Go. Now."

The boy squirmed under Kurama's tight hold. He released the knife from his hand, only for his more fearless accomplice to instantly pick it up and pin it to the girl's neck.

"Let Taka go or she'll get it!"

"Jirou!"

Kurama winced inwardly. He may not know any of them, but he still wanted none of them hurt, as much as humanly possible.

Jirou's armed hand trembled violently as he poked the blade even deeper into the girl's skin. The hostage locked eyes with Kurama's, unblinking, relaying some cryptic message in mute. A strange calm lit them, as if she knew just what to do at the moment.

She screamed at the top of her lungs, once, twice—insincere outcries, but distracting.

Now was his chance.

While all eyes were on the hysterical girl, Kurama summoned the nearest plant with his youki. It was a majestic sakura tree, the greatest branch of which stretched out in a flash, shooting directly towards none other than the three bullies.

Taka and the other ruffian gasped, one knocked unconscious after the other. In a vain attempt to defend himself, Jirou flicked his wrist to slice through something—anything—before he befell the same fate as his buddies.

Long, fine threads spilled to the muddied ground as a gentle breeze whisked away the fallen sakura leaves. All fell silent.

The young boy on the swing darted glances from Kurama to his own playmate in wide-eyed shock and disbelief. He jumped off the swing, his clean sneakers squishing on the mud. With one thunderous, unintelligible scream, he broke into a mad dash, distancing himself from them as fast as his legs could carry him and never looking back.

The girl sighed as she watched her playmate disappear into the distance. Then she turned to face Kurama, a forced smile and a tranquil loneliness across her face.

"So you have a thumb as green as your eyes. Big deal. He didn't have to make a run for it."

Kurama froze. Was she not freaked out as well? "You are mistaken. I had nothing to do with it. You were just seeing—"

"A stranger one minute. A savior the next. A liar now." The girl finished for him. "You're trying to protect me again, this time from the truth. Is it really so difficult to believe and understand? Or are you just taking me for a fool?"

Kurama blinked. Just what is with this girl?

"Underestimate me. Fine. Just leave the kid alone. He will forget this soon, anyway. Even if he doesn't, neither he himself nor his confidantes will believe him eventually," She picked up a stray sakura leaf by its stalk and twirled it between her pointer and thumb. "Unbelievable things, even when already seen for oneself, always remain doubted. Human nature."

Kurama paused awhile and sniffed the air. Not a trace of youkai scent on her. Yet the ningen reminded him of Hiei. Brooding over humanity from an outside point of view… But his case is understandable—he isn't human. "What about you?"

She scaled the commanding sakura tree with her eyes. "I could play a game of selective memory with myself, but what you just did was so out of the ordinary that I would lose." She knocked one of her temples lightly. "Have you ever read Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl? Or the first book in the series, at least?"

Even Kurama the Tactician was thrown off by the random shift in topic. "Uh—un," he stammered. "Why do you ask?"

"The leprechauns in Artemis Fowl—or the L.E.P. Recons—possess the power of 'mind-wipe,' ne? If you're anything like them, then you may have to mind-wipe me." She touched the nape of her neck gingerly, searching for something that refused to make its presence felt. "You have another option, though."

He allowed his eyelids to close, his arms to fold across his chest, and his pointer and thumb to cup his chin—as his body instinctively did when his mind was lost in thought. "To let you go with your memories intact, as I just did with your friend."

"You could call it that. But I believe it's called Trust. You could choose to just trust me."

Kurama chuckled lightly.

"This is no laughing matter," exclaimed the girl grimly. "You are hurt."

The first time that Kurama paid attention to the crimson lace which served as the girl's headband was when she suddenly yanked it off her hair. Then she casually tugged at the edge of his coat sleeve and pointed to the nearby park fountain.

He walked behind her. His eyes traveled down the back of her head and widened upon discovering that her hair was now shorter than when he first saw her, and that its ends were asymmetrical and unevenly cut. "That boy, he—"

"I know," she interrupted dryly without looking at him. "He probably meant to cut something else. So I should be relieved. But the two men in my life, they don't like me with short hair."

"Two…?"

"My father, of course," she answered matter-of-factly. She sat upon the edge of the water fountain made of marble, and motioned for him to follow suit facing her. "And Ame-kun."

Kurama blinked at her, unfamiliarity etched on his face.

"Why? Don't you have a special some…?" The girl's words trailed off. She lightly tapped herself on the head again. "Oh. That should be none of my business. Mengo."

"Mengo?"

The girl refused to return his gaze, a barely visible flush discoloring her cheeks. "My own version of an apology. 'Gomen' is too common for me. When I say it, I feel as though I don't mean it. So I say mengo instead."

Without warning, she seized his wrist and immersed his hand into the chilly water. Kurama felt a new, thin yet piercing pain shoot up his veins, from his palm to his wrist to his arm.

"Mengo if it stings. I take it that you're the type who doesn't mind getting hurt for the sake of other people," she went on, still not meeting his eyes. "Just a small flesh wound. You didn't even notice when Cap Guy slashed you. You seem to have already lived through much worse. Had one too many fights in your time?"

Kurama looked at her squarely. Could she tell his entire past just by the last five minutes of their lives? And is her train of thought really so…?

"I… understand. You don't have to answer that if you don't want to."

Kurama's gaze sank. Both of them sensed a concentrated discomfort befouling the air.

She drew his hand from the water and clicked her tongue thrice when fresh blood seeped out of the deep cut along Kurama's palm. "The cold of the water should have made it clot by now. You're a bleeder, aren't you?"

He decided to be a little more open with her—for that question, at least. "I have bled a lot before."

"You sure you're not a hemophiliac?" She laughed softly, just poking fun at him. Then she soaked her hair band into the fountain water.

"I wouldn't have lived this long if I were." And I do mean as long as over a thousand years, Kurama commented inwardly.

She then wrapped her drenched lace around his hand tightly. "I hope you don't mind. It's not clinically sanitized—it did just come from near my scalp—but it should conceal the bleeding. And hopefully stop it."

"Arigatou."

"Iie. I thank you. You did save me, and that little boy whom I hoped would be the first friend I made today. That was a mistake."

Kurama stared at the small red ribbon binding his palm. "You two didn't know each other?"

"No. He and I simply shared a preference for swings over seesaws. Swings, one can have fun riding by oneself. Seesaws can be quite lonely."

Suddenly Kurama went down memory lane, back to the days when his human mother would take him to the colorful seesaws of Yukimi Park. Somehow they never triggered the same melancholy in him—Shiori did not let them. She never abandoned him. She always sat on the other end of the seesaw cautiously, taking care that he would never fall off, always reassuring him with a tender smile and the words: "Hang on to the bars tight, Shuuichi. Please be careful."

"Be careful," voiced a low throaty echo from reality.

When Kurama set his eyes on the girl before him, he saw a young Minamino Shiori—a female ningen who knew nothing of his true identity yet, as soon as fate brought them together, cared for him as though he were truly her loved one.

"Seems to me you're not that immune to blackmail," She continued, frowning. "If you always choose to be helpless and so expose yourself to harm when the safety of someone you don't want hurt is threatened, then your loved ones will always be used against you."

Kurama wanted to deny the truth of her words. But he could not.

"Blackmail does not work on someone who refuses to be blackmailed."

"Sou desu yo." He had had enough—it was his turn to fire questions. "Do you always analyze other people this way?"

The girl chuckled. "Heh. For all my analyzing, I still don't know what Oyaji will do when he sees what happened to my hair. I'm years too old for any physical punishment now."

But no biological, or even adoptive, ningen in his or her right mind would ever dare inflict premeditated acts of brutality upon his or her own offspring. There are, of course, many qualifications to consider… Kurama suddenly realized that he regarded the punitive decisions of human parents in a positive light because he himself had a nonviolent childhood. Again, thanks to Shiori. "He won't hurt you. He's your father."

"He may not hurt me physically. But I don't look forward to an upsetting verbal spat tonight, either."

She ran a casually wandering finger along Kurama's bandaged palm for a split second before recognizing that she was doing something awkward. She jerked her hand away from his and began thinking aloud.

"Wig? It won't stay on my head forever. He'll find out about it sooner or later." She threw a long look at her blurred reflection in the fountain water. "A haircut? I could just tell him that summer is around the corner and I prefer to keep my head cool, literally. Only problem is, I can't afford one. I'm just like those bullies—penniless. All I have is my love for free speech, but I can't pay a barber with that."

Kurama intruded into her train of thought. "I could shoulder the bill for now…"

"Hn. Single and altruistic. You must have legions of fangirls fawning all over you," She looked away, the faintest pink shrouding her face. "Thanks, but no, thanks. I would rather not be indebted to you in the financial sense of the word. I already am in another sense."

"Okay. Then what if…"

Out of the blue, Kurama rose and strode away, leaving his suggestion unsaid and the girl with a big orange question mark floating above her head. He returned almost immediately with a very familiar weapon in his hands. "Never entrust a Swiss army knife to teenage boys."

"Something tells me that it was not 'entrusted' to them."

Kurama sweat-dropped. "Tonikaku, the good thing is there's a pair of scissors with the set of knives." The memory of Urameshi Yusuke's impossible youkai mane tingled in his fingers. "I'm not a professional, but I have cut another person's hair before…"

"But your wounded hand…"

The girl should have known better than to challenge the mind master at his own game. A moment—of refusal, then eventually of reluctant consent—later, he stood behind her, snipping and clipping with experienced, precise hands. She took a sidelong glance at their reflection in the water. "May I ask why you keep your hair long?" She paused. "Oh. I just did. Mengo."

Kurama smiled to himself. "Just a personal preference. Like how you prefer swings over seesaws."

"Has anyone ever told you that your hair resembles the tail of an animal? A furry animal. Like a fox."

If only she knew that she wasn't that far off the mark, mused Kurama. "Hai, I guess it does."

"Did you know that foxes are such pack rats? They store many things that are of value to them in their cozy little dens."

And if only she knew what I store in my hair for safekeeping... "Where did you learn that?" he asked just to humor the opinionated ningen who he knew by now leapt from one conversational topic to another in a random, haphazard manner.

"I read it in an animal trivia magazine."

"You sure like to read."

"So do you, ne?" She pointed to the book sticking out of his coat pocket. He never got to pick up from where he left off last time.

"Un." First my wound; now my book. What an eye. I must be on my guard.

"Have you ever seen a fox den?"

Inari! Of course I have! Kurama stopped briefly—to silently remind himself not to give his kitsune self away—and then resumed trimming, calm as ever. "Un."

"Hontou? Take me there sometime."

Never had Kurama brought—or dared to bring—any human to his lair as Youko Kurama in all of his years in existence. He had never met one who asked him to do so. It was a peculiar feeling, new to the ancient demon.

He put the scissors down.

She splashed frosty fountain water onto her warm face and waited for the waves and ripples to ebb. She blinked at her fresh reflection and turned to Kurama.

"Oyaji and Ame-kun were right. I'm a hermaphrodite now."

Kurama held his chin in thought, eyeing her new hairstyle. Without her hair accessory on, the boy-next-door bob suited her. She could pass for a particularly young one. She was only two inches or so taller than Hiei—even taking his… elevated… hair into account, estimated Kurama—and her hazy, translucent azure eyes were narrower than those of other girls her age. "It just makes you look a little androgynous, but you're still female."

"Kind of like you looking androgynous but you're still male?" She grinned at him in gratitude, small dimples revealing themselves at the corners of her mouth. "Then again, that's how a bishounen looks. Your fangirls must love you."

He didn't really know how to answer that. So he didn't.

"So," she swung her arms to and fro busily. "What time do you need to be where? I don't suppose that hanging out at public places and rescuing total strangers are really your Sunday hobbies."

Kurama chuckled lightly. "Six P.M. at that music school just outside the park."

The girl rolled up her jacket sleeve to read the time on her wristwatch. "You still have a good thirty minutes left. It should take less than that to walk with me. Onegai?" She lightly knocked herself on the head for the third time since they met. "Sometimes going home alone feels just as depressing as riding the seesaw alone. It can be done, but nothing beats doing it with a friend."

Kurama stuffed his hands into his coat pockets and began walking towards the direction to which she pointed.

It did not take long for the girl's eyes to blink, and then brighten. She smiled widely and happily strode alongside him.

After a few blocks, Kurama broke the silence between them. "If I didn't walk you home, I will never know your name."

"Oh." It suddenly dawned upon the girl that neither of them had actually introduced themselves yet. She knocked her head again, penalizing herself for her stupidity.

"Mayonaka Setsuki." Her eyes expressed a tacit trust in Kurama. "Before she died, Haha told Oyaji that she wanted me to be Setsuna. But Oyaji wanted me to be Kisetsu. So they compromised. I am Tsuki to Ame-kun, but to everyone else, I am Setsu—which can be a male name, I know. And with my hair now…" She sighed in frustration. "It's official."

"It will grow back, Mayonaka-san," Kurama assured her. "Minamino desu."

"Aa. The name written ever so lovingly in countless teenage diaries, I presume," teased Setsu. "But what is your real name?"

A mild confusion registered in Kurama's face. What other name does she want from me? "Mayonaka-san, I really am Minamino Shuuichi."

"Un. But what's the name of the 'you' who wields power over—Mengo. I shouldn't have mentioned it." She lowered her gaze to the floor.

"Sou," Kurama understood perfectly. "Minamino has that power, too. As him, though, I am weaker. But I am really just one person."

He shot her an apologetic look. "If I'm confusing you, I have the Pollen of Forgetfulness with me…" He nonchalantly ran his fingers through his hair, secretively sifting through it in search of the pollen—just in case.

She shook her head with a serene smile. "No need. I will never make mention of this again." Suddenly she pounded her fist into her palm. "And let me guess: you keep that pollen of yours somewhere in your hair. That is why you keep it long and bushy. Good thing you're not allergic to whatever else you stash in there."

Kurama sweat-dropped. How much of my person has this ningen figured out in less than an hour?

"Now I know that you do have legions of fangirls. Even when they deprive you of your clothes, you still have a few tricks up your... hair."

She chuckled to herself, and then stopped before a condominium building. Apparently she lived in one of the units of the twenty-storey tower.

"I've always dreamed of meeting someone like you," Setsu tucked her hands behind her back and clasped them together, facing straight ahead and refusing to meet his eyes.

Kurama's expression flickered. Only one other ningen had uttered those very words to his ears before…

"You are the weirdest gardener I have ever met."

"Gardener?" Kurama nearly face-faulted, his sweat-drop bigger than ever and his suspicions forgotten for the meantime. Well, it could have been worse…

"You make plants grow incredibly fast. You trim. You even collect pollen." She looked up at one of the windows of the building, her glassy eyes mirroring a truth forbidden to her lips. "The light is on. Oyaji is home. I should go up soon."

"Un."

"Ku—" She cut herself short. "—mo-tachi. The clouds," Her tone softened. "They're drifting away."

Kurama gazed at the shadowing heavens of twilight, his wistful, romantic stance betraying none of the fierce turmoil raging within. Did she really just speak of the clouds at random, or did she almost call me—

"Minamino-san—sempai."

A vast, verdant meadow met eye to eye with a cloudless midday sky.

"Whatever you are, it makes you unique. Don't let your uniqueness get you down. Ne?"

He smiled warmly in response, his mind still racing a mile a minute. Human encouragement is really something.

"I don't have many friends. You can probably tell why by now. I really do get into trouble for speaking to everyone this way," Setsu sighed. "Chatty, confusing, and rude do not a great speaker make. That's probably why Oyaji practically drives me out of the house even on weekends—so that I could at least make a new friend somewhere. I hope you don't mind if I tell him about you later. Only if he asks at all."

Kurama was about to remind her not to divulge just what makes him so "unique" when, before he even parted his lips to speak, Setsu made a promise.

"But just the Minamino-sempai you. My lips are sealed." She even pursed them together to demonstrate her point. "I'll even call you Aiba instead."

"Aiba?"

"Short for Akai Bara—because your hair and eyes remind me of a red rose."

Kurama shook his head. He closed his eyes and held his chin in thought. A red rose, he reiterated in his mind. If every creature in Ningenkai could read me like a book…

"Yoroshiku, Aiba," Setsu bobbed her head slightly, caramel wisps loosely framing her face. "Before we part, there's something you should know. About yourself."

"Nani?"

"Never bargain into anything that could cost you your life," Her tone was even more unsmiling than her lips. "More people than you can even imagine will miss you. And I don't just mean your fangirls."

She was grieving, haunted by his ghost in her mind. Her face was finality come to life, as if they would never meet again.

"You are loved, Minamino-sempai. You should learn to love yourself, too."

From the distance, Kurama could make out his stepbrother's guitar case.

"Oi! 'Nii-san! Where have you been?" The younger Shuuichi bellowed to the older one seemingly taking his sweet time moseying toward him, lost in deep thought.

Kurama placed his hand behind his head in apology. He tugged at his stepbrother's heartstrings with something he had learned just recently. "Mengo, otouto. I didn't mean to make you worry about me."

His attempt backfired. "Mengo? Don't try to be cute, 'Nii-san. And I wasn't worried!"

Kurama chuckled. He knew better. "So, how was music school? Did you enjoy yourself?"

"Eh, it was okay," shrugged the budding electric guitar player. "I just thought I'd already learn to pluck the cool way rock stars do."

"In time," assured Kurama. "Talent takes time."

"Yeah, I guess you're right. After all…" Shuuichi grinned at his 'Nii-san playfully. "'It's a looong waaay to the top—if I wanna rock and ro-o-oll!'" He strummed a soundless imaginary guitar in the air, his playing wrist and arm flailing and thrashing about with heartfelt passion.

My otouto and his movies, Kurama thought with amusement, recalling The School of Rock—the charmer that attracted his stepbrother to his newfound pursuit. Though Ningenkai movies get to be a bore, if not a farce, at least they broaden his horizons.

"Tonikaku," Shuuichi the Younger casually slung his guitar case over his shoulder. "Today's lesson ended early, so I looked for you in the park. But all I found there were the police rounding up three boys who were just lying around the playground area. They must've been so tired from playing, they just collapsed right there by some tree."

An educated guess. That theory made more sense than what really happened. Irony is certainly enjoying herself today. Kurama raised his wounded palm and stared at the red lace—a reminder of the truth. "Are they all right?"

"Yeah. Just a little groggy," Shuuichi peered at Kurama's bandaged hand closely. "'Nii-san! Your hand!"

Kurama clapped a hand on his otouto's shoulder reassuringly. "It's just a little scratch. No reason to fret."

"Mou, 'Nii-san!" wailed Shuuichi, his affection for his stepbrother overshadowing his 'tough guy' façade. "You always get yourself injured like that! One day, it isn't just gonna be your hand—your carelessness could get you killed! Just imagine how much 'Kaa-san will cry for you. Me and 'Tou-san and your friends and co-workers and former classmates will—"

"That's sweet of you, otouto. I don't want anything bad to happen to any of you, too."

"Che," The exasperated Shuuichi stuck out his lower lip. "You may be very smart, 'Nii-san, but still—you need someone who'll remind you of what's good for you!"

"You are loved, Minamino-sempai. You should learn to love yourself, too."

Kurama smiled to himself. Too bad.

That someone will have forgotten me by now.

Continued

Please accept my apologies. It was not of my intention to write this fanfic as dialogue-heavy as it turned out to be. I just wanted Setsu-chan to be her own character, considering that she ain't my own OC.

Yup, she is an actual YYH character… but just a minor (and anonymous) one who appeared only in Episode 94. She was in just one scene, and in the company of her beloved Ame-kun, who—alas!—ain't my own creation either and really goes by a different codename in canon. Wild guesses, anyone?

*dodges rotten tomatoes* Ahem, first YYH fic, remember? Please go easy on me!

P.S. I would love to hear Kurama actually saying mengo. *squees* Wouldn't you?

Japanese to English translations and abridged YYH glossary

aa and un. Slang for yes and other such words of agreement or affirmation
akai. Adjective describing something as having the color red (The color red itself is translated as aka)
ame. Rain, used as a nickname in this fic
anou, eh, and hn. Disfluencies of speech (much like the English uh and um), not limited to the Japanese language
arigatou. Thank you, less formal than arigatou gozaimasu
bara. Rose (the flower)
bishounen. Beautiful young man
-chan. An honorific used to address girls, animals, or anything that the speaker considers to be cute
che. A grunt or expression of disapproval, not limited to the Japanese language
desu. Used in this fic to mean I am; a be verb of the Japanese language, the meaning of which differs according to context
gomen. Sorry, less formal than gomen nasai
Haha. An informal address for one's own mother
hai. Yes
heh. An expression of casual indifference (much like a shrug)
hontou. Really / is that true
iie. No
Inari. The god of foxes; Kurama's god
'kaa-san. A contraction of Okaa-san, a respectful address for one's own mother
kisetsu. Season, used as a name in this fic
kitsune. Fox
kumo. Cloud
-kun. An honorific used to address boys or boyish girls
Makai. Demon World (as opposed to the Human World, Spirit World, and Netherworld of YYH)
manga. Japanese comics, such as YYH
mangaka. Creator of manga
mayonaka. Midnight, used as a name in this fic
mengo. Not an actual Japanese word; Mayonaka Setsuki's version of sorry in this fic
Minamino. Southern field, used as a name in this fic
mou. Used in this fic as an expression for whining or complaining
nani. What / what is it
ne. An expression for seeking confirmation (much like the English tag questions isn't it or okay)
'nii-san. A contraction of Onii-san, a respectful address for one's own older brother
ningen. Human / human being
Ningenkai. Human World (as opposed to the Demon World, Spirit World, and Netherworld of YYH)
oi. An expression similar to the English hey, not limited to the Japanese language
onegai. Please, less formal than onegaishimasu
otouto. Little brother
owari. End / conclusion
oyaji. Old man, used to address one's own father in this fic
sakura. Cherry
-sama. An honorific used to address someone very respectfully, like lord or master
-san. An honorific used to address someone politely
-sempai. An honorific used to address an upperclassman
setsuna. Moment (in time), used as a name in this fic
Shuuichi. Excellence first, used as a name in this fic
sou (desu yo). Yes, I agree and other such words of agreement or affirmation
-tachi. A pluralizing suffix (much like the English -s and -es); to be used with discretion because Japanese words can be singular or plural even without it, depending on the context
tonikaku. Anyway, or other such words of transition
'tou-san. A contraction of Otou-san, a respectful address for one's own father
tsuki. Moon, used as a nickname in this fic
Yoroshiku. Pleased to be of your acquaintance / meet you; less formal than yoroshiku onegaishimasu, a greeting that the Japanese customarily say to someone they just met, roughly translating to please take care of me / please treat me well
youkai. Demon
youki. Demon(ic) power

There. This should suffice, even to those who know nothing of YYH. XD If I missed anything that you need translating or explaining, just say so in the Reviews page. Click away! \^-^/