A/N: Okay, here's chapter two. I'm already having a hard time keeping everyone in character, so if you have any suggestions or think I'm doing something wrong, just drop me a line. I hope you like reading it as much as I like writing it! Oh yeah, and I don't have the legal rights to Inuyasha.

Knitting Numbers

What am I doing here? Sesshomaru asked himself with a sigh as he stood in front of the tiny shop. Considering that usually he did the taxes for some of the biggest and most complex companies in Japan, this would be child's play, but he wasn't the type of guy to take on anything less than a challenge. Damn his brother and that annoying wife of his, coercing him into helping some child, what was her name? Rin, was it?

After another moment of preparation, he calmly walked up the stairs to the second floor store with a sign over it displaying in large print the words "Cast On." A tiny bell rang above his head as he pushed open the heavy glass door, and suddenly his sight was assaulted by a million colors.

Everywhere he looked there was yarn, save for the back wall, which was covered in pointy sticks he could only assume where knitting needles. In the middle of the room was a large table, but even that was covered in yarn. Lining the walls were shelves separated into cubicles, each filled with a different color of yarn. Placed every so often were hand painted signs proclaiming that that was the "wall of wool," and that was the "shelve of silks." He struggled not to roll his eyes.

A loud clatter and stream of strangely childish curses (flooby-woogy, ect.) coming from the back of the shop caught his attention. Suddenly what he had assumed was a particularly tightly packed rectangle of red yarn burst open, revealing itself to be a thin door. In amusement he watched as a jean-clad rear end wiggled its way out first, followed by what appeared to be a girl being eaten by a lot of fuzzy purple angora. Softly he cleared his throat, alerting her attention to the fact that she had company.

"Oh, hi. I'm Rin," the fuzzy mass of purple introduced itself. "Um, let me just put this down."

Calmly he stood in the middle of the place by the table as she let the pile tumble to the floor. Making sure it was at least mostly out of the way, she bent over the table to scribble a note for the yarn, giving him a good view of her most un-childish anatomy under her white tank top. Being the gentleman he was, he averted his eyes, instead focusing on the aptly labeled "cashmere corner" until she spoke again.

"Okay, sorry about that," proffering her hand. "You must be Sesshomaru. We don't get a lot of men in here, and especially not like you. I mean, generally knitting and yarn crafts are associated with the elderly, but really the demographic is shifting to the younger…"

"Thank you," he cut across her rambling, shaking her petite hand firmly. "Yes, I'm Sesshomaru. I'm sure it will be a pleasure working with you," he recited the usual meaningless banter. Honestly, he wished she would just show him to the books so that he could finish up as quickly as possible and get out of this massive fuzz ball.

She seemed completely un-phased at his interruption, grinning so broadly he expected to find her showing off that she had just lost her twoo fwont tweef.

"Great. Thank you so much for doing this, by the way. I'll be paying you, of course, but I, um, can't pay you as much as I'm sure you usually get," she admitted with a bit of embarrassment as she led him to that ridiculous red door. "In here is where I keep the records and recipes and stuff."

Stooping his head so as not to hit it on the doorframe he followed her into a room even more cramped than the previous one with extra yarn in plastic bags stacked up to the ceiling. Nestled in the midst of this was a desk, and piled around that were binders, presumably filled with receipts. This might take longer than he thought.

"Don't you have all of this information on a computer?" he asked. She shrugged, which couldn't be a good sign.

"I think so, but I want to check it with all of the inventory. Plus, I think this would be a great time to get organized." Sesshomaru raised an eyebrow. The place certainly needed it. "Anyway, all of the binders are labeled, and…"

"Anybody home?" a voice called from the front, cutting Rin off for the second time in five minutes.

"Oh," she exclaimed, seeming to remember that she was supposed to be running the shop. "I need to go help the customers. Do you think you can handle it?" Tempted to say "no, this place's a dump!" as he was, he simply nodded and picked up the first binder, the word "invoices" scrawled across the spine.

"Coming!" she called as she scooted through the door, though it was much less of a squeeze for her petite form than for him.

Left alone with the binders and surrounded by excess wool, he set to work. There were ten binders, two for every year the shop had been open. On one end of the desk he made two piles; the binders labeled "invoices," and the binders labeled "customer's purchases." This done, he began the task of wading through the mountain of papers before him.

***

Hours later, he glanced at the clock. Five o'clock, it read. Excluding frequent "check-ins" from the owner of the shop whenever business was slow, he had been entirely isolated in the tiny back room. Sometimes, when he was truly absorbed in his task, time went by quickly, but other times, when he had to tediously track down a single receipt, for example, time crawled. But now it was finally five, closing time, and he could go.

I should have been in my office all day, filing reports and doing normal, orderly work, but no. I was here, he thought begrudgingly as he packed up his things in his briefcase and stood to go. Walking stiffly on legs cramped from sitting so long, he shoved himself through the door and back into the colorful main room. Sitting at the table were his sister-in-law, the shop owner, and another woman with a high, tight pony tail that he didn't recognize.

"Oh, hi Sesshomaru," Rin said brightly. The other two, whose backs were toward him, turned to face him. Kagome smiled in greeting, but the other woman looked suspicious.

"Who's this?" she asked, eyes narrowed. Rin suddenly seemed to remember to make introductions, springing up from her seat.

"Sesshomaru, this is Sango. Sango, Sesshomaru. And, um, you already know Kagome," she paused as Kagome waved, then turned to Sango. "Sesshomaru is the accountant who's helping me organize my books." Sango seemed to accept this explanation and relaxed a bit as Rin walked over to where Sesshomaru was standing.

"So, how did it go?" she asked, smiling as usual. He looked down at her. She really was small for a woman old enough to have her own shop.

"Fine. I have an important job tomorrow, so I'll be back Wednesday."

"Okay, sounds good," she said, not seeming to notice that he'd implied she wasn't an important job. "I'll see you then. And again, thank you so much for doing this." She added, glancing at Kagome where she was knitting and laughing with that Sango woman about something.

"It's her and my brother you should thank," he reminded her, and she nodded.

"Oh, I have. Profusely. She is such a kind friend, don't you think?" she commented, gazing fondly on her friends. Sesshomaru didn't respond, instead making a move for the door.

"I'll see you Wednesday, then," he said, effectively ending the conversation.

"Of course. Bye bye, see you then," she called happily behind him, waving as he left.

She was such a strange girl, never seeming the least bit daunted by him. People like that were few and far between, and most of the time they were just too stupid to know when he was dismissing them, but she didn't strike him as unintelligent. Really, she seemed to just be a generally content-with-life type of person, and why shouldn't she be? She obviously has a job she loves, he thought, thinking of all that yarn and her bright smile as she showed him around. Uhg, but her organizational skills needed work, and he was the lucky one who would do it. At least as soon as he was done, he wouldn't have to ever go back to that silly yarn shop ever again. At least there was that to look forward to.