Middle Finger

Kyoto

"You've been angry for a while now." Rin commented as he batted away the balls being shot at him from the machine. He and Yukio were in the training room. Rin had a different schedule for Cram School that eliminated any classes with skills he wouldn't be taking the Exorcist Qualification Exam for.

"I'm not angry." Yukio denied immediately.

"Nah, you're pissed. Whenever you get angry, Nii-chan always knows." Rin lilted, teasing.

"At most, you were only born a couple of hours before me. Please don't try to act like an older brother." Yukio snorted.

"Pfffft, I may not give a shit about anything or anyone in particular, but I'm still allowed to be your older brother." Rin scoffed.

"You shouldn't have been so quick to draw the sword! Your classmates hate you and you're under surveillance now!" Yukio finally snapped at him.

"And?"

Yukio paused. "I can't believe you. How can you live like that?! Not caring, not feeling any emotions. You don't even feel upset over your classmates hating you, and you probably didn't even like them in the first place! You never listen to me and you do anything you can to irritate me. You do whatever the hell you want with no feelings of regret or remorse when you hurt others or yourself!" Yukio looked at him through the grate.

"Easy: Someone wanted to hurt me and they succeeded. They did so well, in fact, that I can't even feel remorse for stressing you out so much." Rin's voice was soft like Yukio had never heard before. "I've never felt sorry for being like this, though. It's not my fault I'm like this. As much as I wish sometimes that I could understand people better, I just can't, and that's my life. There's nothing I can do about that, Yukio. But this," Rin glanced around the training room, at his sword. "This is nice. I have something to do with myself that isn't so boring and pointless. The contentment I feel from being productive and the satisfaction of fighting someone that might be able to beat me are the strongest emotions I've felt in a long time."

Yukio looked at him and saw he was smiling just slightly.

He rolled his eyes.

"You heard about my deal with the Vatican? I'm safe for now. If I don't pass, then I'll die. Either way, I don't really care. Think of it this way: you can finally be rid of the horrid, heartless thing called your brother and it can be just Yukio." Rin shrugged nonchalantly, like he hadn't just said he didn't mind being executed if he failed to uphold his end of the unfair deal.

"Boy, that sounds lonely." Shura said before Yukio could respond,  making her entrance with a big bag that smelled strongly of wax.

"Nice jammies, Boobzilla." Rin commented. "Whatever, you're the one looking too comfortable with your tail out like a monkey." The woman shot back.

"That's my cue to leave." Yukio got up and left, so it was only Rin and Shura in the training room.

"Yay! Now we don't have Scaredy to spoil our fun!" Shura cheered. "Now, onto training." Turns out the bag was filled with a shit-ton of candles, which explained why it smelled like someone melted fifty boxes of crayons in it.

"Light the wicks of the candles on the outside, but not the middle one." She ordered. Rin frowned. He didn't like his flames. They were hard for him to co trol precisely. Whenever he used them, troublesome things happened and got him into shit he didn't sign up for.

"Oh don't give me that pouty face! It's easy. Just think something like 'Pop!' Like the spark on a lighter or somethin'." Shura explained. Rin sighed and began concentrating, sitting across cross on the floor of the training room.