"I still think you should have held it over at our place," Shizuru remarked, nursing her hot tea.

    "You said yourself that studying in my room would lead to too many distractions," her younger brother pointed out righteously.

    "Would you like more tea, Kazuma-san?"

    "Why, THANK YOU, Yukina-san! I WOULD like some tea!"

    "You were speaking of distractions..?" Genkai said dryly, sharing a look of exasperation with the young woman who'd come to visit her.

    "How can you have more tea when you haven't had any?" Yuusuke asked.

    "You can always have more than nothing," Kurama said mildly. "It's having less than nothing that leads to problems."

    The others had asked the youko-turned-human to come to their studying party in order to help explain the subjects he'd studied last year....

    ...or, as Shizuru'd put it, "Every time Otoochan tries to help Kazu with his schoolwork they end up in a shouting match. My eardrums can't take much more of it, and you're better at the clear explanations deal than I am. Please come over and help me out?"

    "Anything for a lovely woman," he'd smiled.

    "You're too pretty to do a good Lupin," she'd shot back at him.

    "A hit! a hit! a most palpable hit!"

    Which, he supposed, explained why he was now sitting in Genkai's temple, attempting to help Yuusuke and Kuwabara-kun master the intricacies of geometry and physical science.

    Shizuru had come along to talk to Genkai (who struck her "as a most sensible woman") and to help out if it came to English, at which she apparently had some facility.

    It might, perhaps, have been better if they'd scheduled the studying party for another day.

    "Another day" being defined as "a day in which Hiei is not over visiting Yukina."

    He'd been sitting in the doorway glaring blue murder at Kuwabara for the past hour and a half.

    Yukina went off into the kitchen to do something about food.

    "Should we worry?" Yuusuke asked.

    "Worry? About YUKINA-SAN?! Urameshi... "

    "I made the canapés earlier," Genkai reassured them. "All she has to do is take them out of the refrigerator, arrange them, and bring them in here."

    "Ca-naninani?"

    "Finger food," Kurama, Shizuru, and Genkai explained in unison.

    "Oh. Why didn't you just say so?"

    Yuusuke stretched, adjusted a book in order to set it at the Perfect Viewing Angle, and looked at Kuwabara. His taller friend appeared to have been struck (violently) by some thought.

    "What's eating you?"

    "Ah! Etoh..." A blush crept up his high cheekbones. "I was thinking what I'm going to get Yukina-san for White Day."

    "Chikusho -- that's THIS week, isn't it? I forgot all about it!"

    "Oh, my aching bank account..." Kurama wailed theatrically.

    "Yeah, brag to the rest of us," Yuusuke snorted. "The only people who gave me any were Keiko, Botan, and Shizuru-san. Ofukuro and Baasan here didn't even bother."

    Genkai snorted. "My giri-choco list would send me broke in a year, so we all decided that the thought was enough. Sweets are bad for you anyway."

    "We? Where was I when this was decided?" Yuusuke demanded.

    "Probably in diapers."

    "What's 'White Day'?" Hiei asked.

    "On Valentine's Day," Kuwabara began in an insufferably smug tone, "women give chocolates to the men they like -- "

    "And to the men in their family, the men they work with, and men who happen to be their close friends," his sister cut in.

    "And then on White Day, one month later," Kurama took up the slack, "we have to give white chocolates to everyone who gave us chocolates."

    "And Yukina-san gave ME chocolates -- "

    "Exactly like the ones she gave the rest of you four," Shizuru, Kurama, and Genkai hastily interrupted in the name of Preventing Grievous Bodily Harm To Shizuru's Little Brother (not that looks have been proven to kill, but with a Jagan thrown into the mix who knows what could happen?)

    " -- so I'm going to give HER the most spectacular white chocolate ever!"

    "What are you going to do, give her a meter-high model of Tokyo Tower in white chocolate?" Kurama asked dryly while Yuusuke glared at a perfectly inoffensive (other than being geometry, of course) textbook.

    Whatever was he going to give Keiko?

    "THANK YOU! That's a MARVELOUS idea!" Kuwabara squealed, fired with enthusiasm. Then his face fell. "But however will I get one?"

    "Molds?" his sister offered halfheartedly.

    "Get a block of white chocolate one meter by half a meter by sixty centimeters and chip away all pieces that do not contribute to a general impression of towerosity," Genkai suggested.

    It wasn't as if he could just return whatever in white -- and wasn't there some sort of meaning thing with white chocolate versus candy versus cookies? -- not after what he'd put on Keiko's shoulders this year, certainly not after... she'd handed them over so casually, with a "So. Let's do something," but they'd been imperfect enough that he could tell that she must have made them.

    "Does that mean I have to give Kurama white chocolates?" Hiei asked suddenly, looking up from his introspection.

    It seemed to be a war with Yuusuke and Kuwabara which would bug out farther: their eyes or their tongues.

    "Y-- you... " Yuusuke managed. Kuwabara was looking rather green.

    "He helped me eat all the chocolates I got for Valentines," Kurama shrugged. "Do you know, he'll actually eat those things with all the cocoa-nut?"

    "Those are good," Yuusuke protested.

    "I don't like cocoa-nut."

    "I like the darker not-very-sweet ones the best," Hiei offered.

    "I like milk chocolate and cocoa-nut," Yuusuke complained.

    "I'll be sure to invite you too next year," Kurama offered equitably. "I thought you'd have better things to do with your time."

    Ech. Valentine's had been a disaster. He'd gone to a movie with Keiko -- well, first they hadn't been able to agree on a movie. He'd wanted gore-fest, and she'd wanted sap, and they'd ended up compromising on a spy movie. Then he'd eaten too many of the small chocolate-covered mints and ended up running to the bathroom to hurl them back up, and it had taken forever to find Keiko again (and she had NOT been pleased to explain the plot he'd missed while people around them hissed for them to be quiet). And she had been pleased neither with the spy being entangled with a married woman, nor with the ending where she went back to her cruel and insensitive husband. Women. There was just no understanding them sometimes.

    "Not the day afterwards," he pointed out. "You don't scarf them all down that night, do you?"

    Kurama laughed. "You have a point. Do you like the ones with the raisins?"

    "Of course!"

    "Thank goodness. Neither Hiei nor I do, and Kaasan doesn't either."

    "But do I -- "

    "No, no," Kurama told the small youkai.

    "You only have to give white chocolates to girls," Kuwabara amplified.

    Yukina came back in with a tray laden with sweet tamagoyaki, celery sticks, whitefish and tuna sushi, sliced cucumber sandwiches, Inarizu--

    "Kurama-SAN!" Yukina gasped as the redhead's hand shot out and deftly scooped all ten pieces of Inarizushi off the platter. "You're spoiling the symmetry!"

    "'re good," Kurama mumbled around a mouthful of sticky rice and sweet fried tofu. He swallowed. "Delicious. Almost as good as Kaasan's."

    "Man, you go through those things faster than Keiko!" Yuusuke marveled.

    "Yahari kitsune des' ne," Genkai and Shizuru commented in unison.

    Maybe it hadn't been such a good idea to introduce those two.

    The tuna sashimi vanished from the other side of the plate in a gust of wind. "Not much blood in these," Hiei commented from his position in the door.

    "They're fish," Kurama told him before popping another of the Inarizushi into his mouth. "What do you expect?"

    "Yuusuke-san? Yuusuke-san?"

    "Oh, sorry," Yuusuke said, realizing that Yukina was now holding the tray out to him. He picked up something that looked made of won ton and tentatively bit into it. "What are these?"

    "Crab cream cheese puffs," Genkai told him.

    Yuusuke took two more, and a piece of tamagoyaki.

    Kuwabara helped himself before Yukina carried the tray over to the two women and set it down.

    "So I have to get her -- " Hiei gestured towards Shizuru -- "a box of these ‘white-chocolate?"

    Yuusuke happened to be looking at Kuwabara in time to watch the taller boy choke on his finger sandwich. He looked almost as appalled (if not more so) at this possibility as he had at the mention of Kurama.

    "I want the kind with almonds," Shizuru told him. "Ask Kurama to show you what Pocky Anglaise looks like -- the properly-sized box -- and bring it to me during my shift at the salon, if you can. That holds for you as well, Kurama, although I expect you to bring regular white chocolates."

    "Oh, you were the one who gave him the box of men's pocky," Kurama noted, hastily swallowing another piece of sushi.

    "It's not like I have a long giri-choco list," the young woman shrugged, "and this way I get to show up my coworkers by having attractive guys bring me stuff on White Day."

    Her little brother apparently could not work out whether he should be relieved or not.

    "Do you want me to bring you yours at the hairdresser's, too?" Yuusuke asked.

    "Of course not. You're Kazu's age; that'd be cradle-robbing. Besides, I'm ten to two that day, so I rather think Keiko-chan might have something to say to that."

    Back to Keiko again.

    What was he going to do about her?

    The question of what to do about Keiko had nagged him all day, possibly leading to the early break-up of the study party.
    As Kurama’d said, “We should try this again under less distracting circumstances.”
    Although the Kuwabara-Yukina-Hiei situation might have been a factor as well.
    He’d tried asking his mother. She’d laughed and said, “Buy her expensive chocolates, the good kind. No one ever buys ME expensive chocolates.”
    “That’s because you never give anyone expensive chocolates,” Yuusuke’d shot back (and made a note to buy her chocolates for her birthday, if he remembered).
    And so when his best friend came over after dinner in order to hang out for a while and try to beat his Nintendo, he could have sobbed with relief if it hadn’t been unmanly to do so.
    “Botan, you’re a girl, right?”
    “WHAT KIND OF QUESTION IS THAT?”
    It was a good thing his skull was so thick, since the oar had undoubtedly put a dent in it. Ouch.
    “I meant — iteteteee — that you’d have some idea what girls like.”
    “What brings this on?”
    “White Day.”
    “Oh.” A smile crept across her face. “You want to give Keiko something special, riiiight?”
    “Not you too,” Yuusuke moaned. “I get enough teasing from Ofukuro as it is.”
    “Sorry.”
    The two of them repaired to his room, where Botan took her usual position seated on the end of the bed, and Yuusuke took his usual position sprawled on the floor.
    “Koenma-sama always gives each of us six of our name-flower for White Day,” Botan offered at last. “Except he gives Ayame a dozen. He likes Ayame.”
    “Who’s Ayame?” Yuusuke was momentarily intrigued.
    “She transferred into Processing from fieldwork about forty years ago. Um… she’s got hair about the color of Atsuko-san’s, maybe a little darker.”
    “But there aren’t any flowers called ‘keiko,’” Yuusuke sighed.
    “I think there’s a kind of rose called ‘Kate’… Botan offered tentatively.
    “Nope, not close enough.”
    Botan flopped back onto the bed, staring at the ceiling. “Just be yourself.”
    “I tried that. She slapped my face.”
    “That’s not all of yourself, any other than pounding someone into the pavement is all of yourself. If it were, would you be working for us now?”
    “Oh sure, remind me of all the stupid things I’ve done,” he said without heat.
    And there’d been such a lot of them, too. Although some of them had been rather interesting, like the time he’d snuck an all-day-sucker along on the class field trip to the place with all the computers (wherever that had been). The teacher had nearly caught him at it, so he’d shoved it into a handy slot in the nearest machine.
    A short while later that computer had been making strange noises, and then a big cloud of smoke had poured out the back. One of the teachers had gasped and thrown the contents of a nearby pitcher of water on the machine.
    The results, the entire third grade class had agreed, had been nothing short of spectacular.
    He wasn’t sure how Keiko’d figured out that that one was his fault, but she’d been at pains to tell him that they’d never allowed another field trip to their facilities again. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been rubbernecking with the rest of the class as the sparks flew and the fuses blew.
    Keiko… he wanted so much to make her smile, but it seemed all he ever did was make her mad. Not that she wasn’t stunning when she was angry — if all that was needed was presence and battle aura, he’d back her against any youkai ever born, and that said nothing of the way — well, never mind that. But was nothing, nothing, to the wayshe looked when a smile lit up her eyes.
    At least he didn’t make her cry. Well, not often. Very seldom, really. And he felt like an absolute heel every time he did. Yukimura Keiko was made to laugh with joy or rage like a storm or earthquake, not to mourn with that look of a broken thing that had once been of great beauty…
    “Hachiro used to write me poems,” Botan suggested.
    “Huh?”
    “I said that Hachiro used to write me poems. As an idea for Keiko, you know? It… there’s nothing quite like holding a poem in your hand that you know someone wrote just for you, who made the effort to put the words together himself.”
    “Hachiro? Botan, have you been holding out on us? Spill it!”
    “It was nearly two hundred YEARS ago, Yuusuke. Old history. But the virtue of a poem has not lessened in all that time.”
    Two hundred years. He was comfortable around Botan most of the time, but every now and then she did something that reminded him of the wi-i-ide gap between them.
    Then his brain caught up with the last part of her statement.
    “You want me to write POETRY?!”
    “She’ll love it!” Botan reassured him.
    “I’ll think about it.”

    Poetry.
    A poem.
    How does one write a poem, anyway?
    Yuusuke felt a moment of regret for ignoring every poem assignment he’d ever had in school.
    Waitasec, he’d written one in second grade. Something about food.
    But nothing since then.

    The thought wouldn’t go away, even in the bright light of day.
    A poem.
    What did you say in a poem for a girl, anyway?
    Unless it was a morning-after poem.
    As if.
    Maybe he should just go with the expensive chocolates.
    Hm. Where would expensive chocolates be likely to be found?

    Suzuki Jiro was a very normal student. Well, perhaps a bit of a geek.
    His chosen method of surviving junior high school could be summarized in three words: Duck And Cover.
    Or, for the more explanation-minded, Stay Far Away From Trouble And Hope It Does The Same For You.
    Never make a scene in class. Never be too affluent or too messy. Don’t hang out with the known brains. Don’t get anywhere near the known troublemakers.
    So he reacted very well when Urameshi Yuusuke’s hand fell heavily on his shoulder as he stepped outside school grounds, all things considered. Despite the panicked look on his face, he didn’t actually gibber with terror or wet his pants.
    “Oi, where would you go to get expensive white chocolates?”
    “Cho… co…” Suzuki’s brain refused to proces the information.
    “White chocolates,” Yuusuke repeated patiently. Inspiration struck him. “With fruit and stuff inside.”
    “Um… there’s a fancy chocolate store on 59th… past the bookstore… next to the place with all the lamp cages… ”
    “Thanks!” Yuusuke let his hand fall and started off. Over his shoulder, he tossed back, “Oh, and don’t go shooting your mouth off all over ’bout this, kay?”
    Students rushed up to Suzuki as soon as Yuusuke had left, clustering about him in an excited mob.
    “That was Urameshi Yuusuke!”
    “What did he want?”
    Suzuki shook his head violently. “He’ll kill me if I tell anyone!”

    Yuusuke strode down 59th Street, in a good mood for a change. The first student he’d asked had known of a chocolate place; was that luck or what?
    Keiko.
    Yu-ki-mu-ra-Ke-i-ko.
    Seven syllables. Well, he had one line of his poem. If he wrote a poem, that is.
    Very convenient, that.
    And this must be the chocolate place. It was called GO-DAI-NO — no, GODAIBA.
    Yuusuke stepped inside. Mou, hadn’t they heard of heaters in this place? Oh well. White chocolates, white chocolates.
    “Meep!”
    “Can I help you?” one of the salesgirls asked.
    “Um, I’m looking for white chocolates with that fruit core jell stuff, but, uh, not quite that expensive.”
    “We sell the ones with fruit cordial centers singly, as well,” Sayoko Salesgirl trilled, gesturing a little farther down the glass counters.
    Yuusuke looked at the price notes and winced. “I’d like one of the cherry and two of the raspberry ones.”
    Keiko liked raspberries. Heck, she liked raspberry almost anything — except spinach. They’d agreed when they were eight that raspberry spinach would be a bit much.
    But now he was going to have to write her that poem.

    Haiku or tanka?
    He’d thought of another six-mora phrase, which with the addition of an intensifier could be the second seven-syllable line of a tanka.
    But haiku were shorter, and he was having enough trouble thinking up stuff as it was.
    The small bag containing three foil-wrapped white chocolates sat on the corner of his bookshelf (nearly completely taken up with issues of Jump and Shounen Sunday), taunting him.
    It was the thirteenth already. Late on the thirteenth. He wanted nothing more than to crash for the night, but he just had to finish… that… damn… poem…

    “Is something wrong, Yuusuke?”
    “Nah.” Other than passing an esctatic Kuwabara in the hall — he’d actually MADE that Tokyo Tower sculpture. At least, it kind of looked like Tokyo Tower. or a very skinny pyramid — he hadn’t bothered to cut out the inner space, in the interests of ‘keeping it from falling over and breaking.’ “Why would it be?”
    “You’re here early.”
    “Is it that unreasonable for me to come to class early?”
    “When talking about you? Yes.”
    “Here.” Yuusuke handed her the small white paper bag. “For you.”
    Keiko gingerly opened it. Inside were three small foil-wrapped items and a folded piece of notebook paper. She took it out and unfolded it.
            Urusai yo
            Yukimura Keiko
            Naze suki ka.
    “YUUSUKE!”
    Oh no. He recognized that tone. Keiko was on the warpath.
    “WHAT is this supposed to mean? Huh?”
    “Um, well… ”
    “And only THREE white chocolates? All you got me for White Day were Three Lousy Chocolates?”
    “Uh, Keiko — ”
    “Urameshi Yuusuke, I’m not speaking to you!”
    And she flounced to her seat.
    Ch’, that went well. Not.

    What a perfectly lousy day. Really. he didn’t see why he should even be in this stupid class — he’d seen Kuwabara head off, sculpture in arms, an hour before.
    He’d just take his lunch — and himself — off in the general confusion of lunchtime.
    Only all the girls in the class had decided to cluster their desks between him and the door. Oh well, couldn’t be helped. He wondered what they were all talking about so intensely.
    “Masaru-kun gave me this,” one of the girls — gloated? Girls gloat like that?
    Somehow, that restored his faith in the general order of the universe.
    But, chikushoh — the box was heart-shaped and the size of a Takahashi wide-ban. No wonder Keiko’d been mad at him. At least she was facing away from him.
    “Hn!”
    That was Keiko. Where’d she learn to ‘hn’ like that?
    “Yuusuke gave me Godiva white chocolates and a poem,” she proclaimed.
    “A poem?” At least three girls asked in ragged unison.
    “He wrote it himself. It had my name and ‘suki’ in it.”
    Oh, right. It had.
    “I’m jealous,” one girl whimpered.
    “Would you consider trading?” another joked.
    “When rain falls up!”
    Yuusuke slipped out the door, bentoh dangling from one hand.
    What a perfectly wonderful day.