"Okaa, wa's this?"

Kagome turned at the voice of her three-year-old daughter. The dark-haired child was holding up what appeared to be a small, shiny sphere on a black string. Some sort of necklace, perhaps?

Kagome knelt down and gently took the object, observing it with her daughter. As it turned out, the object was not a sphere, but a heart. It was clearly made of false gold, a trinket from her time, though bits of dirt and grime dusted it here and there, hinting that the object was in no way new. Kagome smiled, remembering.

"It's a locket," she answered.

"A what?"

"A locket," Kagome repeated, opening it to show the child pictures of her parents. Neither looked very happy, but those had been the only photos of herself and Inuyasha that Kagome had at the time, when they somehow wound up inside a photo booth and Sota had decided to activate it. "Izzy, where did you find this?"

"Well, me 'n' Michi was looking through some of Otou's old stuff tryin' to find—"

"I was not!" came a shout from the other room. Kagome chuckled to herself. It seemed that Michi, Izzy's six-year-old brother, was listening to the entire conversation from the other room. In fact, she wouldn't be surprised if Michi, too "tough" to ask about a girly gold heart himself, had put little Izayoi up to the task of asking their mother while he listened to the explanation from a safer distance.

"Well, anyways," Kagome said, "I suppose it doesn't really matter. I'm just surprised he's kept it this long…" she trailed off, smiling. "Though whatever you were looking for, I'd advise you stop. Otou-san won't be happy when he finds you two have been messing with his things!" Her tone was good-natured, even adding a bit of a light-hearted sort of chuckle to the end.

But Izzy's face didn't reflect the same shade of happiness. Rather, it held a curious grimace of concentration in staring at the photos in the locket. Her tongue stuck just a tad out of pursed lips and her dark, floppy dog ears gave the slightest twitches as she studied the picture. Kagome's smile faded, replaced by a face of concern.

"…Are you ok, sweetheart?"

"Why you and Otou look so mad?" Izzy questioned innocently, a look of minor disappointment on her face. Her parents always seemed so happy to her.

Kagome sighed, but regained her smile. She took on a more comfortable cross-legged position and hoisted Izayoi up, seating her daughter on her lap.

"Well, Izzy, that was a very long time ago. Nearly ten years, in fact," she added, doing a quick calculation in her mind. Math was never her strong spot, but sometimes she could pull some basics out of just about nowhere.

"…And believe it or not," she continued, "Otou and I didn't always get along! Do you know why he has those beadies around his neck?"

Izzy laughed lightly, familiar with the silly punishment the rosary brought.

"Sit!" she cried joyously.

Kagome laughed with her. It was a command that had scarcely passed her lips in the more recent years, at least when Inuyasha was around. But back then, of course, the word was shouted often.

"That's right," she said. "When Otou and I were teenagers, I used to "sit" him all the time. He was such a jerk, did you know that?" She asked, though her tone remained lighthearted and her expression a smile.

"You mean like Michi?" Izzy added, half-seriously. Kagome laughed again. As siblings, Michi and Izzy naturally had their squabbles, though Kagome didn't think that her son was quite as rude or ignorant as her husband once had been. Stubborn and hard-headed, yes, but not quite the same.

"Well, sort of," she said in answer.

"I wish I could 'sit' Michi sometimes," Izzy admitted.

"What?" came a seething hiss from the other room. Kagome bit her lip to keep from laughing out loud again. So he was still listening?

…Which brought her back to the original topic she'd been on. Glancing down, she noticed Izayoi observing the locket again.

"'Tis pretty, though," she said softly. There was a moment's pause.

Then Kagome closed the clasp and gently took the locket from her daughter's grasp. Izzy watched her curiously.

"Well, you know," she said gently, smiling with warm eyes half closed, "if you really like it that much, you can have it." She stretched open the dark string and placed it over Izzy's head.

Izzy's brown eyes lit up, mirroring her mother's.

"Really?" She gasped, grinning widely.

"Of course." Kagome confirmed happily. Izzy bounded to her feet.

"Thank you, Okaa-san!" she shouted before leaping playfully out of the room. Now, she thought joyfully, I just need a brush and some ink to fix it with…

Kagome watched her daughter bound excitedly out of the room, smiling. Who would have guessed a silly old locket with angry faces on the inside could make a three-year-old so happy?

Shortly after Izzy had bounced out, Michi slunk in slowly, staring at his mother with a curious indigo gaze. His dark hair was, as usual, ruffled in front of his face and his dark ears—pointed like his father's, not floppy like Izayoi's—were forwards and alert, though seemed to be angled just slightly downwards.

"What's up, Michi?" Kagome greeted, still smiling, as her son walked up to her. Michi blinked and replied in a somewhat disappointed voice,

"Do I get something, too?"

Kagome laughed and embraced her down-trodden son.

"Maybe," she replied gently. "I'll have to see if I have something."

There was a pause. Then Michi broke the silence with a rather annoyed, but serious question.

"Izzy doesn't really get to 'sit' me, dose she?"

Kagome winked.

"Of course not."

Inuyasha loudly slid open the door to his house later that evening, entering quickly and setting his sword to the side.

"Welcome back," Kagome greeted gently, shifting forewards to give her husband a quick peck on the cheek. "How was the exorcism?"

Inuyasha shrugged.

"Not a problem, really. The youkai was really weak, and—"

"OTOU, OTOU, OTOU, OTOU!"

Inuyasha never got to finish his sentence as Izayoi came bounding up to him, Michi following more slowly, still having slight hopes of getting something.

"Hey, Izzy," he said, looking down at his small daughter dancing excitedly below him.

"Otou, lookit this! Lookit this!" She slid her new locket off her neck and shoved it in her father's upward direction. He accepted it, a look of confusion on his face.

"Izayoi, where on Earth did you find this?" he murmured.

"Open it! Open it! You, too, Okaa! I fixed it!" Izzy boasted proudly.

"Fixed it?" Inuyasha echoed. "Was it broken?"

"Just open it, dear," encouraged Kagome. "I want to see just what Izayoi fixed…"

"Ok, ok!" snapped Inuyasha. He opened the locket, then stared in surprise. Kagome gasped, covering an open, smiling mouth with a hand.

"Oh my goodness," she exclaimed quietly, "Izzy had mentioned she didn't like the angry faces, but I didn't expect her to do much about it!"

There, where two angry faces had once resided, messy black ink curves distorted it into smiles, with two big dots covering both the eyes and the eyebrows so that there was no fury in the gaze. Both were the obvious work of a toddler with a brush.

Kagome bent down happily, hugging her daughter.

"Izzy! Sweetheart! You made us happy, didn't you?" Izzy grinned and giggled.

"And I still do, right?" she added brightly.

"Of course." Kagome confirmed.

"Well, I…I got the ink down!" Michi stuttered, trying to claim some of the scheme as his. Kagome looked up at him and smiled, then held out an arm, inviting him into the embrace. He eagerly accepted.

"Well, you make us happy too, sweetheart," Kagome cooed, kissing her son lightly on the forehead. Michi smiled contentedly, his shining indigo eyes lighting up, all desires for his own little trinket forgotten.

Inuyasha stared gently down at his family, now all on the ground, his eyes much softer and brighter than they had once been, ten years before.

He knelt down with them, entangling all three in a massive bear hug.

"I love you all sometimes, you know that?" He murmured lightheartedly. Surprisingly, it was Michi who answered.

"Well, you make us all happy, Otou-san." He said earntesly.

The family laughed together.