Title: Beautifully Imperfect
Author: Tsubasa Kya
Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or Yu Yu Hakusho.

Chapter two: What comes from "fire"

Her heart beat a little faster when she saw the number on the phone and knew immediately who was calling her. It made her smile, knowing that even while he was at work, he thought of her enough to call her up, just to say a quick "hi". Her hand shook over the handle for a moment and she let it ring a few times before picking it up and greeting the caller as she would if it weren't him. "Hello, Sunset Shrine Psychiatry, Doctor Kalian Onigumo spe—"

She was interrupted almost immediately after getting her name out there. She heard anger in his voice and was struck speechless at the very thought of him angry. She had seen him angry, and didn't want to ever be privileged again to the horror.

"Can you believe I was fired?" He asked, indignation shining through to her end of the phone. "Kali, I was the hardest worker there! And they fired me!" She could hear the desperation in his voice and wanted to hold him in her arms like he did for her so many times before. The job he had at Soh-A-Tech was one he enjoyed, so it made her feel bad that he was fired.

"It's alright, hon." She told him, trying her best to make him feel better. "They'll realize what a great worker they just lost, I'm sure they will." She heard on the other line mostly just silence, but she heard the tell-tale sounds of a bar at three-thirty PM. It made her feel the happiness that she'd initially felt at his coming phone call dissipate like it had never been there. He couldn't be at the bar, could he?

She found herself praying in her mind to any god that would listen. Don't let my husband be at the bar. The line two button on her phone began to blink red but she felt this was too important for any other call that might be coming in. She listened to him sniff for a few moments before he began to talk again.

"Kali, I'm sorry... I'm at the bar... I won't come home tonight. I'll see you when I'm sober again." Her heart stuck in her throat when she heard he had hung up on her. Three years of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings at the hospital didn't keep him away from his problem after something as difficult as getting fired from his job. But he still was sober enough to be thoughtful. If he came home, he would be aggressive—something she desired not to see.

Setting the phone receiver back on the hook, she let the phone ring for a few moments, choking back the tears that wanted to come out. Her husband was fired from Soh-A-Tech, was drinking again because of it, and despite his promise not to come home, she wanted him to so she could be there for him, aggressive or not. She loved him.

The phone stopped ringing and she moved away from her desk to a small armoire placed nearby, opening the right door so she could get to the lock-latch on the left and open that one. There was a mirror on the inside of the left door and she used it to make sure she didn't look anything less than professional. No one, no one, would ever know she just wanted to curl up in a ball at that moment and start crying.

Nodding crisply at her reflection she said, "Hello, I am Doctor Onigumo." But her voice shook. She tried again, and again, and again until it was no longer shaky. She tried over and over to control her voice back to that professional, yet soothing tone she used with all patients. Still, the memory of what had happened the last time her husband began drinking haunted her. Her children still bore the scars of those few terrible years...

The phone started ringing again and she moved to answer it. She took a deep steadying breath. This time her heart did not pound out of happiness, but instead out of apprehension. She picked it up after the third ring and said, "Hello, Sunset Shrine Psychiatry, this is Doctor Onigumo speaking."

The man on the other end of the line sounded cold and purely professional, she noted as she heard his voice. She guessed him to be the owner of some well-made business, rather accurately too. Soon as she heard him say his name, she recalled a magazine article written about him and his prospering business. Soh-A-Tech. Did this man know he had just ruined her husband's three years sobriety? Her knuckles were white from holding the phone too tight.

"Hello, this is Haru Nokugami. I'd like to make an appointment with you."

Vengeance nipped at her heart and made her blood run cold, goose bumps racing up her arms and legs, even on her stomach. She pulled her schedule over in front of her and said, "Is this your first visit to a Psychiatrist?" Her phone had not broken yet. She was surprised. Her angry midnight eyes threatened to burn a hole right through her desk, even though just looking at it really wouldn't do that itself.

"The appointment is not for me. It is for my sons." Haru said, his voice reaching an even colder air than before. Kali knew how this man could fire her husband, who had worked nearly directly for him. It was because he clearly cared for himself, not others. Oh how she loathed people like that.

There were some people who could tell a person's personality from watching how they dealt with the waitress in a restaurant. Likewise, there were some people who could tell a person's personality just from hearing their voice. Kali could do both, and she was ready to hang up. But the appointment was not for the man who had fired her husband. Instead, it was for the man's sons, who she took pity on. No one should have had to live with such a jerk like Haru Nokugami.

"Is it your sons' first time then?" She found she had to place conscious effort into not grinding her teeth.

"Yes." He said curtly, making Kali's blood boil instead of remain cold—which he had also been the cause of. She wondered if that was how he spoke when he fired people too.

She bit her lip and counted to twenty in her head before turning back to the phone. It would not do to scream at him. She said, "Alright, then," while in her head a little devil was arguing with a little angel about right and wrong and which path she should take. "I have a slot open right now if you can bring them? It is the Group Counseling you wanted right?"

"Yes." Still the same cold and emotionless voice. The phone was straining, she could hear the plastic groaning under the barrage of her fingers applying pressure.

"It will be two thousand per child." She had agreed with the little devil in her head, and it was very satisfied.

"The ad in the paper says two hundred."

"Merely a misprint." She told him smoothly. "It is two thousand per child, per session."

"The ad in the paper says two hundred per child for ever five sessions."

"Isn't that strange? I shall have to speak with my editor at the newspaper."

"Hm."

"Sir?" It took all of her self control not to call him bastard or some equally horrible name. She managed to do it, but barely.

"You had better do a good job with them." He warned her before hanging up.

When Haru got to the shrine with his sons, Kali knew immediately which one was well on their way to becoming just like his father. The elder one was. His blank face and cold stare seemed haunting, but his cryptic voice was a complexion towards him. It showed her that he was not quite there yet, that he still cared something for someone other than himself. But underlying that was a layer of ice that was slowly freezing his voice in a monotone.

Haru said, "These sessions will happen once a week. During this time, you will keep them over night. A car will be sent to pick them up in the morning for school." And then, Haru left the two boys in Kali's care.

She looked at them in their strictly businesslike suits. The younger one had messy platinum blond hair, so strange it could almost be silver, and she knew they were both demons. "Well, don't just stand there." She told them. It took all her effort not to snap at them. After all, they weren't the reason her husband was drinking. That was their father's fault. "Come in."

End chapter.