Title: Beautifully Imperfect
Author: Tsubasa Kya
Disclaimer: Sorry, I do not own Inuyasha or Yu Yu Hakusho people. I'm just a fan.

Chapter three: What homework is hard

"First, may I ask why you two believe you are here?" Kali asked the two boys. They sat next to each other in front of her desk in the two chairs so she had sat behind her desk, folding her hands under her chin and placing her elbows on the desk.

"Because Sesshoumaru has a crush on Kagome, a girl in my grade, and is too chicken to do anything about it!" The younger boy with messy silver hair yelled, glaring at the older boy. His hands clenched the armrests of the chair, white knuckled.

"Shut it, Inuyasha!" The elder boy snapped, his face no longer emotionless. He had dropped the emotionless act as soon as their father had disappeared down the shrine stairs, making Kali wonder about him. He was an intriguing enigma already and she found herself wondering whether or not the elder boy really was as much like his father as she originally thought.

"Make me! Ow!" The elder boy took the younger boy, lifting him right out of the chair before throwing him on the ground. Kali sighed. So much like her own children. Fighting all the time.

She spread her power throughout the room, the power of the priestess, and the two boys froze before looking at her. "Enough." She warned them, her voice soft.

"Dang you, Souta! Come back with those keys!" Kagome hollered at the young boy who had taken the car and driven off. He couldn't hear her, which she realized, but it made her feel better to yell. She wore a skirt that day, only due to a bet with her friends. She and her only girlfriend would wear a skirt and matching top and if they made it through the entire day wearing it, they would get twenty dollars from each of their guy friends.

It wasn't that either desperately needed money, but a bet with someone else created a challenge to themselves. "I'm going to kill him." She chanted in her head. She wanted to run him through a meat grinder, but of course that would probably be called murder and in the wonderful society that they lived in, it was an unacceptable thing to do. So as she started the eight mile walk to her mother's shrine, on the outskirts of the city, she cursed the last day of school, the skirt, and the fact that the school was in the middle of the city.

Soon, she was cursing the wind for being so breezy, and the skirt for constantly wanting to blow up and reveal her underwear. The sandals were not the best walking shoes and so it wasn't long before she was cursing those as well. When she managed to get home finally, she yelled, "SOUTA! PREPARE FOR WAR!"

She saw movement out of the corner of her eye and looked, seeing the sliding door to the living room was closed. She walked over, peering in through the small crack between the two doors and saw a red sleeved arm on the rocking chair in there. She slid open the room door and snuck up behind the chair, prepared to grab them, but only instead found a different person there. "Kouga?" she inquired, surprised. Wasn't it Wednesday? Didn't he come only on Tuesday?

The image of the person sitting on the chair began to fade and she knew what was wrong. Turning quickly, her skirt flared up and she had time enough to see her brother dashing away from her. "It was an illusion," she realized, chasing after him. The skirt allowed her legs even more free movement than pants would have, she realized.

Racing through the lengthy corridors of the shrine, she realized where he was going and hastened to catch him before he got there. She tackled him just before he could open the door to their mother's counseling room and his face came hard into contact with the floor. He yelped, but she would not relent.

She brought his hands up around behind him, twisting them, and he cried out, "Uncle, uncle! I give!"

He should have known better than to mess with his older sister, she thought, but when she saw the bruise forming on his cheek from hitting the ground, she winced, feeling slightly bad. All that heat must have gone to her head, she figured. Ninety degrees wasn't a day made for walking outside eight miles.

"Kagome! Souta! That is enough! You are both adults, I would expect you both to act that way, not like children!" Kali admonished them, having come to discover what noise was disrupting the session she had with the Nokugami boys. She was standing in the doorway to her counseling room, looking hurt and upset that they would fight. The two teens got up, both equally looking guilty.

"Sorry, mama..." Kagome said at the same time that Souta said, "Mama, I'm sorry..."

Kali looked at them both with a stern face for a moment and then her look softened. "I want you both to apologize and then be quiet. I've got a counseling session and I don't want you disturbing it." She turned to go back in the room before looking back at them. "Kagome, dear, I have a few things for you to do—errands really—but whenever you are ready I would like you to come get them off my desk."

Kagome nodded her understanding before turning to her brother. Their mother returned into the room she came from. Souta looked at her and said, "As if I'd apologize to you." He began to walk away, but he was grinning. "The keys are hanging up on the hook in the kitchen." It would be accurate to say that Souta and Kagome, for all their fighting and arguing that they often did, were closer than most siblings. They told each other almost everything and would be considered best friends by most people's terms.

"Cool. Wanna go hang out with Sango, Miroku and me at the Rave later?" Kagome asked as though nothing had happened. Souta went into the living room, which looked very much like a waiting room at a doctor's office. Their mother had made it that way for parents or children or spouses who wanted to wait while their family had their session.

He hopped onto one of the couches by the T.V. and sat to watch cartoons. "Sure I guess. Hey, wanna know what?" He pulled his bright red shirt off and lay back on the cushions. She wished she could do the same. The room was scorching.

"Hm?" Kagome asked, jumping over the low back of the couch to land on his gut. He didn't complain; it was a normal occurrence, but he did make the traditional 'oomph' sound one makes when one has the air run out of their body quickly. The skirt was just long enough to cover her legs so at least their skin wasn't plastering to each other. Upon her body, bells jingled musically when she landed. A bracelet made of pure, thick silver chain links was on each wrist and from each chain link dangled a tiny bell, perfectly toned like a wind chime.

On her neck was an almost identical choker necklace to the bracelets, though it was slightly different. To prevent the chain links from pinching her neck it was backed with a black velvet connector. Dangling from the very center of the necklace was a midnight colored star, and from each side of the star was the tiny bells coming from each chain link. This jewelry she called her responsibility.

"I asked Nakoto out." He told her, his eyes plastered to the screen as though if he looked away, he would miss something awesome about the Water Soaker Five-Thousand-And-One commercial that conquered the television at the moment.

She already could guess the answer to the question she was about to ask, but asked it anyway. "What'd she say?"

"No..."

"Sucks to be you." She stated, and he threw his lip out in a pout. She grinned down at him, "You know, she's too stuck up for her own good anyway."

"Still, it sucks." He sighed and changed the subject. "What time are you going?"

The cartoon came back on and Souta's attention was fully devoted to the television. Kagome knew better than to try talking to him until the commercial. Ten minutes later the commercials came on again and he looked at her expectantly. "Probably five thirty, six o'clock. Somewhere around there."

"Okay. So's I know."

"Mhm. I'm pickin' Miroku up on the way." Kagome looked down at her brother. He stuck his tongue out at her and she rolled her eyes at him.

"Trip gonna be there?" He questioned.

She shook her head. "No, he's still feeling sick."

"Okay."

She left to go up to her room, doing a bit of her homework with difficulty. She never was good at math. The subject she excelled in was History but that was because she lived on a shrine and her mother and father had been teaching her and her brother it all their life. She got bored of it before she finished. The only thing she managed toget a lot done onwas her history work for Mr. Hiatz. Why teachers gave homework over the summer holiday, she would never understand, but at least she had a lot of time to work on it.

End chapter.