Dysfunctional by Marriage

Summary: Love is one of those things that can't be determined by a written test or the drawing of lots, no, it's much more taxing than such trivial pastimes...however...one can not deny that outside forces can influence the budding of... 'Love.'

Anime/Manga: Death Note/InuYasha

Pairing: Hee...hee...hee...

Genre: Romance/Angst/Hurt/Comfort/Family

Rated: M for Mature Content

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Chapter Three: A Study in...

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Tap!

Mello looked to the bed across from his. Matt was lying on his back playing something that had held his attention for the last four hours. They would be moving sooner or later, as right now, Mello and Matt shared a room. His father and step-mother had been actively looking for a new home. At the moment, both were away on their Honeymoon. So there would be no moving until they got back. There was, however, a shit-ton of packing going on.

Tap!

"Hey, bro. I think it's for you."

Turning his eyes away from his newly acquired step-brother, Mello stood and stepped over to his window, opening it in time to have a small pebble thrown into his room. He glanced back at the tiny thing before turning his eyes downward at the two who were now laughing their asses off. "Do you two fucktards not know how to use a doorbell?"

"Don't be mean! Come downstairs and let us in, Mel!"

Rolling his eyes, he turned away from the window, but hollered back, "it's unlocked, just come in."

Matt frowned and rolled over onto his side. "That was a girl. You're dad lets you have girls over?"

Something about the way Matt had said it, had Mello laughing out loud. "I don't particularly view them as such, but yeah, sure. Hey," he gave him a look, "don't be weird."

"I won't!" Matt quickly rolled back over and continued his game.

It had been a week since the wedding. Mello was supposed to start tutoring some underclassman tomorrow and was writing up a syllabus of sorts to follow. Anything to make this as painless as possible.

"Mello~" a voice called from downstairs. "Do you want a drink?"

Glancing at Matt, he asked, "you want a drink?"

"I could go for a soda. Nothing diet."

Standing, he left their shared room and made his way downstairs. "Sayu, aren't you too comfortable in my house?" Mello asked as he leaned up next to her and reached over her shoulder for a water bottle and coke. Said girl squeaked and jumped out of the way.

"Make a noise, Mello! Seriously, wear a cowbell."

"Or a choker with like, one of those cute cat bells on it."

Mello raised a brow at his other guest who was sitting at the island with a water bottle in front of her. She had her phone out, reading texts from her boyfriend, no doubt. "Yeah, that's not likely to happen."

Misa Amane, seventeen years old, a second-year who was currently ranked second in the entire school, right after him. Not including the seniors. She had a part-time job with a modeling agency that scooped her after her summer vacation photos went viral of Tweeter. Social Media buzzed about her all the time, but she was surprisingly down to earth and modest when it concerned her body and success in modeling. Her boyfriend was none other than Sayu's older brother. Light Yagami was a year above Mello, working on their finals and college prep courses. He was nineteen.

Sayu Yagami was sixteen years old and only a first-year. She was a model daughter. Studious and incredibly careful with who she hung out with. Her reputation didn't matter so much to her, not as much as the way her parents viewed her, at least. Her older brother has been tutoring her since she was in elementary. In Mello's opinion, not well enough if the second-ranked senior could only manage to push his younger sister into third place after ten years of one-on-one studying. That aside, she was good at sports, and often, he could find her playing soccer and basketball when she was trying to get away from school.

Both came over time-after-time again, to study with him, usually on Sundays...but... "I'm assuming that you both heard about the tutoring program." He asked as he started back upstairs with Misa and Sayu following behind him.

"Yeah, which is annoying, because now we'll need to reschedule our study sessions." Misa scoffed, "like I didn't already have enough on my plate."

Sayu smiled, "but I think it might be fun."

"Have you ever tutored before?" Mello opened his door and stepped over to Matt, holding the soda out for his younger brother who took it without glancing away from his screen.

Sayu glanced curiously at Matt but returned her attention to Mello and shook her head. "No, I haven't."

"Yeah, I kind of figured as much. Fun is not the appropriate adjective that one would use to describe tutoring."

Misa walked over to Matt's bed, the couch they would normally sit on was gone, so she wasted no time in making herself comfortable on the corner of his bed. Sayu found herself sitting on Mello's bed, her legs pulled under her as she pulled out her notebooks and a pencil. "Getting back to the point, is Saturday okay with you? Studying, I mean?" Misa discarded her sweater and opened her backpack.

"It's fine. Matt..."

Matt was lying on his back still, but his eyes were drawn to the vivacious blonde beauty on his bed, and despite the sound of his character being killed, he couldn't pull his eyes away. Seriously, how did Mello have such hot study partners? "Hold on, you expect me to believe that these two came here to study?"

While Sayu didn't pick up on his implications, Misa did. She raised a brow as she lowered her eyes to the auburn-haired boy on the bed she'd chosen to occupy. "I'm assuming you're Mel's new brother. Younger? Don't answer that. So because I'm attractive, I can't be intelligent?" She held her hand up and stopped Matt from speaking, "Don't answer that. Listen, sweetheart. I work hard for three things in life, money, looks, and grades. You don't get to assume I'm some dumb blonde bimbo, just because of how I look. Do I make myself clear?"

"..." Matt raised a brow, "I don't know if I'm supposed to answer that."

Mello laughed and sat down at his desk, "don't let her get to you, Matt. She's being a bitch because Sunday is usually when she's got her modeling shoots."

Misa flipped Mello off but didn't disagree. "Alright, can we start with Physics C?"

Mello lifted a textbook from the bookcase next to his desk, "Theoretical Concepts?"

"I think so, yeah."

Sayu laid down, fixing her skirt before opening her book. "We left off on Maxwell's Velocity Distribution."

N f (vₓ) f (vᵧ) f (vᵣ) dvₓ dᵧ dvᵣ

Misa nodded, "I hate stopping in the middle of an equation. Alright, so if we suppose the N particles to start from the origin at the same instant, then this will be the number in the element of volume (dvₓdvᵧdvᵣ) after unit of time, and the number referred to unit of volume will be..."

"N f (vₓ) f (vᵧ) f (vᵣ)" Sayu answered, "but the directions of the coordinates are perfectly arbitrary, and therefore this number must depend on the distance from the origin alone."

"That is going to be―"

Matt listened as the three went back and forth between one another. Finally, no longer able to listen to anymore, he rolled over to the other side of his bed and reached into a bag that lay against the wall. Pulling earbuds out, he plugged them into his game and blared the volume. Hours passed. Hours. It was almost eight pm when Mello nudged him with the back of his hand. Pulling an earbud from his ear, he watched the blonde frown and yank the other bud from his ear.

"What the fuck, Matt. You're going to blow out your fucking eardrums, shit."

Matt laughed, "geez, you sound like my mom. Where did your study buddies go?"

"Left, it's nighttime. Are you hungry? I'm going to order a pizza,"

"Ooh! Yeah, extra cheese and no anchovies or onions!"

Mello nodded, "I can work with that. Do you like pineapple?"

"On cake, sure."

Mello smiled at him and left their room.

"Pineapple on pizza...seriously." He made to grab his earbuds but noticed they were gone. "What? Wait, Mello!" He yelled as he raced after his new brother. Not even sure when he'd pulled them from his game since he'd closed it so not to lose his place. The sound always shuts off when he closed his game. How was he supposed to know Mello had taken them?!

"One side of cinnamon sticks and that's all," Mello held a hand up as Matt came running downstairs. His cellphone was pressed to his ear as he browsed the books in the living room while pulling them from the shelf and packing them in a box on the coffee table. "Right, thanks." He hung up and turned back to Matt before returning his attention to that task at hand. "Come help me. You need to give your eyes a break."

Matt frowned, "you sure do take quickly to your role as an older brother, that or you're just naturally overbearing." He tossed his game on the couch and walked over to one of the six bookcases in the living room. "You two like to read,"

"These are all mine."

Matt turned and stared at Mello in visible surprise, eyes wide and mouth agape.

"Is that shocking? My dad was a good student, great even. Had to be. He needed to get a good job and make enough money to support his too-young girlfriend and newborn child. However, he doesn't go out of his way to read the Mathematical Mosaic by Ravi Vakil. He does what was necessary, no more, no less."

Matt was still looking at Mello as if he'd grown a bull's head, "yeah, but this is like a small library. You've read all of them?"

"Sure, some of them I've gone through more than once. Though, that's more for pleasure than it is education. Don't tell my dad. He thinks all I do is work and study; I like it that way. It makes him question who's the adult when he spends his time goofing off at pool halls, drinking with his friends and such."

"Yeah...I can see how he might be confused." Sarcasm dripped heavily from Matt's tone. "You know, even I get out occasionally. Maybe you should come to hang out with me one day."

"I'm good,"

"Alright, I'll just go drinking with my friends alone. Maybe I'll pick up smoking and get a tattoo."

In years to come, Mello would look back at this as one of Matt's more manipulative moments. Right now, however. "Do I look stupid to you?"

Smirking, Matt silently continued placing books in the box beside them. By the time the pizza arrived, four out of six bookcases had been emptied, eight boxes had been filled and stacked, two-by-two in the living room. "Damn," Matt shook his head as he grabbed a slice of cheesy, ham, bell pepper, and mushroom pizza. "I'll never need to go to the library again."

"Just curious, but what do your grades look like?"

Laughing out loudly, Matt turned and brushed Mello off. "Not doing this with you, bro. Leave me and my grades alone. I promise you and I won't get along if you start bugging me about my grades and studying."

Was this a challenge? Mello tilted his head. He didn't want to have a stupid brother. Not that he thought Matt was. He seemed quite quick-witted, but still. His reputation was something that he kept polished. He'd find out Matt's grades himself. He already knew who he could ask about them. Taking a bite of the pizza, he watched Matt search around the room. "What are you looking for?"

"A remote. You have an 85" TV, I want to watch a movie. Surely you've used your TV before."

"The remote is in the compartment on the couch," lifting the armrest beside him, he grabbed the remote and held it out for Matt.

"Awesome!" Sitting down, he turned the TV on and watched as Samsung glowed across the screen before searching out the TV guide.

"Movies are under the entertainment center," He was kind of cute. Mello chuckled, watching him roll across the floor to the cabinet beneath the TV. Reminding him a lot of what it must be like to own a puppy, he watched him read over the titles.

"...boy...you are such an old man." Matt snickered, "Abducted in Plain Sight, By Reason of Insanity...Out of Mind, Out of Sight..." he flipped through a few more titles, "NCR: Not Criminally Responsible, Connections: An Investigation into Organized Crime in Canada, Shooting the Mafia, Redlight, Not My Life, Nefarious: Merchant of Souls...oh... H*Commerce: The Business of Hacking You." Matt laughed, "You interested in hacking, Mello? You don't look like it."

Rolling his eyes, he stood up with his plate and walked into the kitchen adjoined to the living room. "What would you know about hacking?"

"Absolutely nothing," Matt finally pulled out The Hacker Wars and put it in. "Let's see if I can learn something,"

Falling back on the couch, Mello laid down on his side and propped his head upon his elbow. Matt was to the left of him, leaning forward as he watched the previews of whatever movies had been getting ready to come out at the time. It was late, but neither seemed to care. After all, what was an hour and a half in comparison to the many nights they were bound to spend awake until early morning anyways? Gaming, studying, fighting, the skies the limit, and they had plenty of time to learn to fly.

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Me: Here is chapter three. I had a lot of fun writing this. I was going to write more but problems arose. For one, I'm tired, and two, the next part was pretty long in my head and I didn't want this chapter to be overwhelming. Review, and let me know what you think.