A/N: Hello all! Welcome to my story. My name is Carmen Takoshi.

Imperfect is an idea I've had for about a year now. I love it very much, as I'm sure you all love your own stories, so you can surely understand how I feel. After a few chapters of experimental writing, I've decided to submit this to the public to see if I can gather a bit of feedback.

THIS IS A WARNING: This story contains shounen-ai/mild slash. Nothing too hardcore, but since some of the main themes are gender identity and choice of sexual orientation, stuff is bound to happen sometime. Turn back if it's not your thing. I will not be held responsible for "corrupted" minds.

Also, this story uses honorifics and random pieces of Japanese language (in certain chapters). If that pisses you off, then I suggest you turn back as well. Thank you.

Finally, I'd like to thank my wonderful, ever faithful beta reader Storms-winter on who has been a great support to me although shounen-ai isn't really her thing. :) I tip my hat to you.

Plot and all characters belong to Carmen Takoshi. No stealing.

And without further ado, now presenting...

Imperfect
by Carmen Takoshi

-Prologue-
Megumi

My last train ride from Kyoto to Tokyo seemed like the longest train ride of my life.

Maybe it’s because I’d never been on the train to Tokyo by myself before. The last time I went was when I was nine, back when Mom was still alive. If it hadn’t been for her, we probably never would have gone to Tokyo as a family, because Dad never liked traveling except if it was with Mom.

I don’t really remember that trip. Mom had wanted to go for shopping, and for family time, mostly, although she wouldn’t say so in front of Dad. Dad didn’t believe in “family time”. He thought that being together as a family, spiritually, if not physically, was enough. Even now, I still can’t understand what she could have possibly seen in him. That’s love for you, I guess. And she really did love him. She always told me so, whenever I asked. She never got tired of saying it. I love him, Megumi, she would say to me, I love him, simply, strongly. And when I would begin to pout and say I didn’t understand, she would laugh. No, of course you don’t. That’s all right. Most everything was all right with Mom. She never got angry when I did things or didn’t understand things, not like Dad.

Tokyo was a blur to nine-year-old me. I knew that I had to be tough, though, for Mom, for my sisters, because I was the only guy in our family besides Dad, and Dad would have gotten mad at me if I had done something childish like start to cry. So I sucked it up. I clung to Mom’s hand and to Yuko-neesan’s hand too, because she was and still is my oldest sister, and when you’re nine years old, it’s still okay to hold your older sister’s hand.

Of that one trip, I only remember two distinct things: holding my mother’s and sister’s hand as we walked down the street, and the sight I saw through an open studio window.

I can’t remember what made me look through that window. It was one of those huge windows, so huge that they made up the entire wall. It’s a very intimidating thing for a nine-year-old to encounter a wall like that. I was so intimidated that I ran right into it. I guess I didn’t really believe it was an actual wall before I bruised my nose and forehead on it.

It only hurt for a moment, I think. It didn’t matter. Yuko-neesan was saying that I had left a smudge of nose blood on the glass, but that didn’t matter. The only things I could see were the people on the other side of the glass; the only thing I could feel was the quickening throb of my little heart, not unlike the distant pain throbbing in my forehead and nose.

The people past the glass were dancing.

They were all tall and thin, it seemed. Maybe they only seemed tall because I was small, and maybe they only seemed thin because I was pudgy. I didn’t really think about that, not then. All I could see then was their gentle mouths parted as though in song; their arms sometimes straight, sometimes curved, sometimes flapping like birds’ wings; and their nimble legs, and small feet skittering across the studio floor in their worn silk toe shoes. These dancers were beautiful to me and immediately I wanted to be one of them.

“But Megu-chi,” Yuko-neesan said to me, with that tiny smile that I haven’t seen since Mom left us. “They’re all women. Girls. You’re not a girl, are you?” She had laughed, not a cruel laugh. Yuko-neesan has never been cruel, but somehow I’ve always managed to interpret her as such. Maybe it’s because she chose to tease me in that one moment. Maybe I’ve always resented her because of that one moment.

But as the moment was occurring, it didn’t cross my mind to resent her. I was happy. I wanted to go into the studio, to see the dancers up close, their long limbs and graceful hands. I wanted to touch their little tulle skirts, maybe even the blessed slippers that carried them so easily across the room, as though the bodies above them were light was air.

But Dad was getting impatient. He was dragging my two younger sisters away from the glass wall, reminding Mom in a loud voice about the shopping she had intended to do.

Obviously, my child’s mind was made up. Even as I grasped Mom’s and Yuko-neesan’s hands, I knew that I wanted to be a dancer. And during that whole trip, the brief look into that special little world past the glass wall was all I could think or talk about.