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Given enough time in the world, most living creatures come to recognize a connection between sex and death. Sometimes it's a weird adrenaline-junkie thing, a thrill-seeking flirtation with death turned sexual. Sometimes it's an instinctive urge to connect with a lover for reassurance in the face of loss, or an attempt to ensure the survival of the community by creating new life. Sometimes it's seeing the casual confidence of a friend in his new (old) form, feeling the immense and terrible power rolling off him, and realizing that even though you're still in heartbroken denial about your mentor's recent death and the looming possibility of your own, what you really wanna do right now is drag said friend off somewhere private and let him do things to you while you run your hands through his long, long hair.
Yusuke is mostly the last one. He forgets it in the chaos and tension that follow, but this isn't the kind of thing that disappears once forgotten: instead it lingers in the back of his mind, settles hidden like a seed in soil while he fights and grieves and finally gets to go home.
On his second day back, just barely this side of everything calming down again, Yusuke finds himself wondering how it would've gone if he'd been cold or dumb enough to try to fight Kurama over that mirror he'd stolen. Obviously Yusuke would've gotten his butt kicked, he's not delusional, but now that he knows more about Kurama's fighting style he finds himself wanting to examine it from different angles. The smartest way probably would've been to get him to waste his spirit gun and then just whip him to pieces, but maybe Kurama would've still felt merciful? Maybe he would've brought the fight in close, kept Yusuke distracted with his soft lips and his pretty face and the jarring impact of fist on flesh—
A car horn blares. Yusuke leaps back, heart thudding in his chest as he comes back to reality on the roof of Sarayashiki Junior High. Chatter drifts up from open windows and the school grounds, telling him he's daydreamed straight through to lunch. He decides he's not gonna tell anyone about that, and definitely not about what brought him out of it.
Three days later, when he wakes to a wet spot over a dream where Yoko Kurama held their bodies flush against each other, the tips of his claws digging into the small of Yusuke's back while he whispered unimportant things into his ear, Yusuke decides there's one person he has to tell.
"I beg your pardon?" Kurama says; Yusuke tells him again.
"I need you to reject me so I can stop having a crush on you! What part of that doesn't make sense?"
"All of it, but let's start with the part where you want to stop having a crush on me." There's amusement in his voice, but Yusuke can't tell whether it's over Yusuke's request specifically or just some bullshit wisdom centuries-old demon foxes possess that 15-year-old humans lack. The uncertainty trips him up, and he can't do anything but glare at one of the flowering bushes in Kurama's backyard and will his embarrassment away.
"You don't have to tell me if you really don't want to," Kurama continues when Yusuke doesn't say anything. "But I'd rather not hurt you if I can avoid it, and these feelings have a good chance of going away on their own if you give it more than a week."
Yusuke bristles, straightening out of the slouch he hadn't realized he's been sinking into. "I don't wanna wait! I wanna go back to how I felt about you before so I don't have to worry about how much more it's gonna hurt the next time you nearly get yourself killed!"
That… is not what he'd been planning to say. Hell, it's not even something he'd been thinking about before it came out of his mouth, but now that it has Yusuke knows it's true. He turns on his heel, determined to leave before the sheer fucking honesty turns this into a bigger feelings talk than he'd planned for, but Kurama catches him by the elbow before he can even get anywhere.
Neither of them speaks, and the silence grows with the same unexpected menace as one of Kurama's plants, pressing outwards and gently, steadily engulfing everything. Just when it's about to become too oppressive, Kurama moves. Yusuke doesn't flinch—even without this stupid development, he doesn't know how to be afraid of Kurama—but he's still surprised to feel himself tugged backwards until his body is pressed against Kurama's.
"I apologize for worrying you," Kurama says, and god, it's not fair at all, the way his voice pitches just a little lower and his breath tickles Yusuke's ear, so close to the stupid dream that drove him to come over here in the first place. Kurama's hands are on his arms instead of at his waist, Yusuke's facing the wrong way, and of course Kurama's not in the right form, but even so it's so close to perfect Yusuke feels his resolve crumbling in real time.
"If you want me to be more careful," Kurama continues, "you need only ask. It's been a long time since I've had anyone's happiness to consider except my mother's, so I need to be reminded from time to time. But if you decide not to want me because the risk of my being hurt is more convincing than all the wonderful things I could show you, you're not the idiot who won me over in the first place."
"What the hell kind of compliment is that supposed to be?" Yusuke demands weakly. His face is burning hot and his breath is coming heavier than it should from just standing there, and he kind of loves it.
"The honest kind," Kurama tells him; he brushes his mouth against the side of Yusuke's neck, and like fucking magic Yusuke's knees give out. He barely notices, too focused on the way he's suddenly hot all over instead of just his face and on Kurama's tightening grip around his arms. Then they're on the ground, tangled together like a couple of morons, and Yusuke finds his strength again. He scrambles up and around until he's kneeling over Kurama, grabs the stupid jerk by his face, and presses their mouths together.
Objectively speaking it's a shitty first kiss, wet and clumsy and not quite on-target, but Yusuke just doesn't care. Kurama's lips are even softer than he imagined, smooth and warm beneath his, pushing back in a way that feels like come closer rather than back off. Yusuke has to back off, though, just enough to recenter and try again, and this time it's so much better.
Kurama sighs through his nose as their mouths meet, closes his eyes and parts his lips a little. His hands settle on Yusuke's hips, tugging gently downward, and Yusuke may be an idiot but he can take direction. He sinks down off his knees to sit in Kurama's lap, so close he can feel Kurama's chest against his when one of them inhales, and breaks this second kiss to start a third. Kurama lets him, lets Yusuke kiss him again and again at slightly different angles until he knows exactly how Kurama's lips yield against his and feels bold enough to part his own a little.
As if he was waiting for just this moment, Kurama opens his mouth a little wider and darts his tongue out to lap against the inside of Yusuke's bottom lip. It's terrifying and thrilling all at once, a reminder of how much territory still remains between what they're doing now and things Yusuke still can't wrap his head around even in dreams. He knows he wants it, though, knows he wants Kurama to be the one to give it to him—trusts Kurama to do it without pushing too fast or dragging too slow.
With this thought as firmly in his head as possible through the static haze built up in his head, Yusuke relaxes further against Kurama, sinks his hands into his hair, and allows Kurama to deepen their kiss. Kurama stays gentle, licking into Yusuke's mouth slow and teasing until he can't resist the urge to answer in kind. It just feels so good, so good Yusuke wants to grind down on whatever the hell that hard thing is between his thigh and Kurama's lap—
He puts two and two together right about the same time as he hears a car door close nearby, and can't help the strangled noise he makes into Kurama's mouth as Kurama freezes beneath him. They both pull away at the same time.
"Is that—?" Yusuke begins.
"My mother," Kurama confirms. They scramble apart and to their feet, straightening their clothes and their hair until they mostly don't look like they've been making out half the afternoon.
"Hey," Yusuke says, surprising himself again. "Come over to my place tomorrow so we can pick up where we left off."
Kurama, as beautiful as one of his roses and only slightly more controlled, beams. "It's a date."