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Keeping Up Appearances	By : TheKaytla Category: InuYasha > Yaoi - Male/Male > InuYasha/Sessh?maru > InuYasha/Sessh?maru Views: 3545 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own the series Inuyasha, nor its characters.They are property of Rumiko Takahashi, Shogakukan, Yomiuri TV, Sunrise, and Viz. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-One
- 2-Two
- 3-Three
- 4-Four
- 5-Five
- 3
- 4
- 5
Chapter Four

When Sesshomaru got his test results back three days later, he was able to breathe a much-needed sigh of relief. He managed to scrape an A, if only barely; still, it was a big improvement on his last score and much better than he'd expected. It seemed Inuyasha really did know what he was talking about... at least as far as history was concerned, anyway.

He'd have to test the hanyou on some other subjects to make sure he was really able to help... but if it turned out he was, it would lift a huge weight off his shoulders, provided his sometimes ornery classmate would continue to be cooperative. It might be wise to try and come up with some sort of incentive - positive or negative, he didn't care, so long as it worked - to ensure he remained so.

School ended with him feeling cautiously positive about the near future; for the first time in a long time, it felt like he had something of a handle on things, and he was revelling in it. To make sure his good mood remained, he took the long way off school grounds, the extra time taken worth it to avoid his girlfriend.

Kagura was still hung up on how he'd blown her off a few days ago and had hinted strongly at lunch that she wanted some sort of reparation, tonight. He'd played dumb at the time, but he had no doubt she'd pounce and sink her claws in if given the opportunity, and so he took the considerably easier way out.

It seemed the universe was out to get him regardless, however, as the little bubble he'd surrounded himself with burst viciously almost as soon as he entered his home. In the entrance hall, a new painting of superior quality was being carefully arranged to hang on the wall opposite the door. It was lifesize - the frame had to be taller than the front door it was carried through - and of his mother, resplendant in furs and glittering jewels. Sesshomaru's stomach fell right through the floor.

He walked woodenly through the rooms - seemingly getting emptier by the day, as he discreetly sold things to keep them afloat - of their house until he found her in the living room, stretched out on a chaise lounge. In her hand, she swilled a glass of dark red liquid that probably cost a month's wages for that much alone without counting the entire bottle. He felt his hands clench into fists and fought to take some calming breaths before he could speak.

"Mother," he said tightly.

"Hm? Oh, Sesshomaru, darling," she said dreamily; clearly, this was far from her first glass of expensive alcohol today. "How was school?"

Sesshomaru ignored this; his mother hardly cared what he was doing, so long as he wasn't causing her embarrassment. It had been the same for as long as he could remember, and hadn't stung for many a year now.

"Mother, where did the new portrait come from?"

"It's beautiful, isn't it? Suki showed me a portrait she'd commissioned and it was so gorgeous, I knew I had to have one myself."

His hands clenched again. Calm, he told himself. Remain calm. It was a very large portrait... it would have taken a significant amount of time to complete. It was entirely possible his mother had commissioned this piece before his father left with everything and it was already paid for. It had to be that way; there was no money left to pay an artist with.

"How long ago was this? Surely a painting that size would take some time."

His mother smiled as she sipped from her glass. "That's the beauty of it, darling. I only commissioned the piece a month ago. Isn't that extraordinary? Such talent he has. He agreed to paint it as quickly as he possibly could for an extra fee of a few thousand. Isn't that wonderful of him?"

His mother prattled on, but Sesshomaru didn't hear the rest. A strange ringing had begun in his ears as he processed exactly what she had said. A month ago... Just after his father had left. At a time when he had been recovering from the shock and the betrayal, trying to wrap his head around the fact that there was nothing left, trying to get his affairs in order by himself because his mother wasn't of any use to him, combing through their accounts to see if there was anything left that could help them stay afloat... At that time, when they'd been at their lowest, directionless, she had spent what little remained of their fortune on some pointless display of self-indulgence.

"How can you be so selfish?" he snapped, voice lashing out like a whip.

Cut off mid-sentence, his mother jerked in absolute shock at his tone, one he'd never used with her before, leaving her staring at him in blank silence for a few moments. But her pride soon resurfaced, and had her pale golden eyes flashing angrily as she sat up, slamming her glass on the table in front of her as she did so. The overly-priced liquor splashed over the rim and was ignored.

"How dare you speak to me that way?" she demanded, her voice sharp and cold as a shard of ice as she climbed to her feet and drew herself up to her impressive height until she was almost eye to eye with him.

"How dare I?" he returned, seething, his voice rising with every word until he was shouting. "How dare you? Do you have any understanding of the situation we're in, mother? Is it able to penetrate through this thick shell of self-indulgence? Are you so used to being able to have whatever you want that you're entirely unable to fathom a life without it? The money is gone, mother; there's nothing left, and you spent the last of what we had on that ridiculous, self-aggrandising picture now disgracing our hall. Do you have any comprehension at all for what you've done?"

Her hand raised and lashed out at his face; another time, he may have let it connect rather than lay a hand on her, but no longer. He didn't see her as a person deserving of his respect anymore; in truth, he didn't really even see her as a mother. He caught her by the wrist in a grip tight enough to make her yelp before she snatched her hand away.

"Get out of my house," she all but hissed at him instead. "You get out right now."

"If you don't stop what you're doing, it won't be your house anymore, or mine. Don't you realise that? We cannot afford to spend money on anything but the essentials, and yet I find out you're wasting what precious little we have on friviloties. You disgust me. Next time, think about the consequences of your actions before trying to keep up with all the other shallow socialites."

With that, he turned on his heel and strode toward his bedroom to grab his uniform, and left immediately after. The last thing he heard on his way out of the house was the sound of her glass smashing against a wall.

He tried not to think about how much that was worth as he hit the street, unable to even afford to go for a drive to calm him down. Every drop of petrol was priceless now, a commodity not to be used recklessly, and so he had only the forward momentum of a brisk walk to help him cool off.

It worked, to a degree. His blood was no longer pumping, echoing in his ears, and his hands weren't clenched so hard in his pockets that his knuckles ached, but he had by no means settled. He was still walking fast enough that he was close to running, and he shouldered his way past anyone who didn't move out of his way in time, ignoring the shouted insults that followed him.

He carried on that way for almost an hour, letting his feet lead him wherever they wanted, before he stopped to look around and notice where he was. It unsettled him to realise that he was about two blocks away from Inuyasha's apartment, even more so to realise that he was vaguely tempted to go there early.

He wanted someone to vent to, he decided... but that person was not going to be Inuyasha. They weren't friends, they merely had a business arrangement and that was it. There was not and would never be anything more between them.

He checked his watch and, after a moment of internal debate, decided it was late enough to justify heading to work. He'd doubtless be early, but perhaps he'd be able to get some of his duties finished before he even began his shift. After his afternoon, he could use a more sedate working environment.

Settled on a course of action, he backtracked to the nearest bus stop to wait.

---

Later that evening, he was much calmer than he had been when he left for work. To his relief, it had been a quiet and uneventful shift, enabling him to slowly wind down and distract himself with the routine. By the time he arrived at Inuyasha's for his study session, he was almost in his usual state of mind and was ready to throw himself into school work.

A mere forty-five minutes later and Sesshomaru was reeling from a new horror: Inuyasha truly was intelligent. Not only that, he could very well be the most intelligent of the two of them. It was like someone had suddenly told him the sky was green and expected him to believe it; it just didn't compute.

Yet the evidence was right here before him. He had decided to start off the evening with an impromptu quiz for the hanyou: he'd picked up textbooks at random, spanning all subjects, and asked him questions. Without little to no dithering, Inuyasha had answered every single one correctly, pulling the answers out of his head with such ease that Sesshomaru was left equal parts awed and horrified.

He found it incredibly difficult to reconcile this with the guy who sat at the back of class throwing peanut M&Ms in the air, catching them in his mouth, until he leaned back too far one time and ended up toppling to the floor.

But if Sesshomaru remembered correctly, he caught the M&M.

"...and then they went to Mars and met an alien called Dweebok --"

"What?"

Inuyasha grinned as Sesshomaru focused on him properly again. "Just making sure you were listening. You were staring."

Sesshomaru ignored this, clearing his throat and shifting in his seat. "Why is it you never do well in school?" he demanded.

The hanyou shrugged lazily. "I pass my exams; that's good enough, right?"

"But you could do so much better," the youkai insisted. "You could be a straight A student."

"And be a goody two shoes like you? No thanks."

Sesshomaru frowned. "You could get straight As and still skip school and get drunk and have wild sexual encounters."

One of Inuyasha's eyebrows raised. "Where did you get that from?"

"Everyone's heard the stories about your... escapades."

Inuyasha suddenly looked amused, sitting up from where he'd been slouched across his sofa. "What stories?"

"Do you want the full or abridged version?" the youkai asked dryly.

The hanyou laughed lightly. "Full version. Obviously."

Sesshomaru sighed, setting down his pen in favour of rolling his shoulders while he spoke. "It's taken as general knowledge around the school that you use your money to get into clubs you shouldn't be allowed to, that you get drunk, get into brawls nightly, and that you're wildly promiscuous. I don't care to go into anymore detail than that about any of those particular points, but let me assure you the full versions are... colourful."

Inuyasha was grinning from ear to ear now, his golden eyes practically dancing with glee. "I certainly get around for a high school student, huh? And wouldn't you like to know how much of that is true?"

Sesshomaru, correctly guessing that answering in the affirmative would lead to a ridiculously long tangent, declined to take the bait. "That aside," he said instead, "you distracted me from my point. We were discussing your grades."

"That I did," the hanyou replied blandly, "but you don't have time for anything else but studying, right?"

Sesshomaru considered arguing and getting back to his original point, but he had to concede that his classmate was correct. He should be focusing on worrying about his own grades, not those of someone who painfully obviously would never need his help. Reluctantly, he let it go and turned back to his work.

---

Poor Sesshomaru. Another down in his life :/ And Inuyasha, just what have you been getting up to, hm?
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Keeping Up Appearances