Disclaimer: Anyone you recognize doesn't belong to me. Anyone you don't, does. Especially Kusaraku Fujii. He's my pride and joy.

Title: Body, Mind, and Soul

Chapter: Five - Studying

Even before she went there, Kagome had an image of Kusaraku's house in her mind… because of his personality and the way he held himself, he seemed like he'd be well-to-do. The image in her mind was of an old, but well-kept mansion, probably enshrouded in shadows, or something like that.

She certainly hadn't pictured what was before her now: A very shabby-looking house, one story, with an overgrown, weed-covered yard. The house itself looked like it would fall down if you stepped wrong.

Kusaraku looked at his house and sighed before going up the walk to open the door. "This is it. Come on in, Higurashi."

When they got inside, Kagome started to take her shoes off, but he stopped her. "Don't. You never know what you'll step on in here."

A rather harsh voice came from the next room. "What's that? You home, boy?" A moment later, a man came into the hallway, and a rather… distinct smell came with him. Kagome wrinkled her nose slightly at the stench as the man glanced at Kagome. "You brought a girl home? Good, I knew your hormones would kick in someday!"

The man, who had a rather prominent beer belly and was bald on top, looking nothing like Kusaraku, looked Kagome up and down, then grinned lecherously, slapping Kusaraku on the back. "Nicely done, son, I knew my love juice was good for something!"

Flushing in both anger and embarrassment, Kusaraku moved away from his father, grabbing Kagome by the sleeve and pulling her after him until they had reached his room.

Inside his room it was much different then the rest of the house… it looked like Kusaraku had at least tried to fix it up a little, and it was much cleaner, and smelled normal.

He looked really embarrassed. "I must apologize for my father. He's…"

Kagome stopped him. "Don't worry, I understand…" She noticed a photo on the wall of a lovely woman with pale skin and long black waves of hair. "Who's that?"

He looked away. "It's my mother… she died a long time ago."

"Oh!" Kagome's hand went to her mouth. "I'm sorry."

He shrugged. "Don't be. She died when I was born, so I never knew her… you can't miss what you never had."

They sprawled out on the floor to study, and everything went normally. In fact, it went better than normal, since it turned out that Kusaraku was just as smart as Kagome had heard, and he made everything that seemed so hard before so much easier to understand.

Before she knew it, it was time to go home. Kusaraku offered to walk her home, but she declined.

As she walked home, Kagome couldn't help but feel confused. I was so sure that he was Naraku… but he acts almost completely normal… but he's not completely normal, I can sense it.

Oh man, what am I supposed to do?