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Jin and Touya didn't consider themselves close friends, or ever friends at all, until the Dark Tournament. They were companions and comrades, and they fought for and with each other, but that was what you did when you were shinobi. Touya preferred to spend his time with Gama, who he considered an intellectual equal capable of producing decent conversation, while Jin roamed the skies in his leisure, far away from troublesome teammates who were either too stupid or too serious to take a joke. However the two felt about Risho and "the big idiot", Jin and Touya knew only one life and would do anything to preserve it.

Then they fought against Team Urameshi in the Dark Tournament, and five were down to two.

Touya, never talkative, found that he couldn't stand silence, and Jin, always a laze-about, suddenly found a goal. If asked whose idea it was to rent an apartment in downtown Tokyo, neither could say.

"The view's not bad."

"Jin, we're on the twentieth story."

"It'd be better if that building weren't so tall. Maybe I could take off the top five levels. The humans won't miss 'em. Eyesores."

Jin claimed the couch for himself the day they picked out the furniture. Touya resigned himself to the armchair and tried to ignore the personality metaphors.

"Did you check the mail?"

"Damn, I forgot. I'll go get it."

"Don't bother, I already did." Jin would have seen that if he had bothered to look at the coffee table instead of staring out the window. "Your father sent you a letter," he said, fishing out an envelope.

"Not again!" He threw his arm over his eyes. "Do me a favor and get rid of it. Or recycle it, whatever."

"I took the liberty of reading it."

"Of course you did."

"He isn't happy that you're taking money from the family account to splurge in the human world."

"Of course he isn't."

"He wants you home right away. And your mother, too." He waited for an answer, and when he found that he would get none, continued, "How does your father even know we're here?"

"Lousy ninjas we are, eh? He's got familiars everywhere. And he may complain, but I only take enough for half of what we need. The other half he sends himself."

"Why would he do that?"

"He can't make his mind up. Half of him wants me to be a good boy and go home, and the other half is as curious about human world as I am. And Mum just hates being alone with Dad."

Touya took the letter out of the envelope and laid it on the coffee table. As he left to prepare dinner, he saw Jin read it from the corner of his eye.

"You've got dinner duty tomorrow, Jin."

"I thought I had laundry."

"Not with the job you did yesterday. Horrendous. The manager of the laundromat posted a picture of your face on its doors, banning you."

"It wasn't that bad." He jumped up and in a quick hop, floated to the kitchen and stood behind Touya. "Pleeease, Touya, don't make me eat my own cooking. You wouldn't want anything to happen to me, would you? I can't even boil water."

The remains of the pot that Jin used were still smoking at the bottom of a landfill.

"Fine. But my pants better be spotless."