Kagome roved up and down the aisles of the supermarket hunting for her furry eared companion. She was never taking Inuyasha shopping ever again. He'd been curious about where she bought all the ramen, and tired of waiting for her to finish packing, so Kagome had naively agreed to show him. The odd looks his bright red fire rat robes, white hair, yellow eyes, and Tessaiga attracted were bad enough, but then he'd just disappeared. One second they were both in the ramen section, Inuyasha excitedly checking out all the different flavors while she stocked up on the chicken noodles, the next he was gone, and she was left with a cart and a baseball hat.
Anyone could see his ears, and he was in a public space! Kagome picked up her pace and nearly ran over a girl with short brown hair wearing a light yellow summer dress.
"Sorry! Did I hurt you?" As the girl turned to face her, clutching a basket full of instant coffee, Kagome started. "Haruhi? Is that you?"
Haruhi seemed to tense for a moment at being recognized, but relaxed when she saw Kagome's face.
"Hi Kagome, I'm fine, looks like you're in a hurry."
"Yeah, I'm looking for my friend; you might have seen him, yellow eyes, white hair, red costume..."
"Nope, can't help you, sorry."
"Oh." Kagome slumped, but tried to regain her composure and politely said, "I heard about your scholarship, congratulations! How do you like it at Ouran?"
"It's okay, bunch of rich people running around, nothing special. What about you?" Cathcing sight of Kagome's nearly overflowing cart she added, "Wow, that's a lot of ramen, what's it all for?"
"School is... okay. I've been absent a lot, which has made it hard to keep up, especially in math, but I'm alive at least... The ramen is for a trip through the feudal era with a hungry irritable dog demon."
"Hah, good one," Haruhi laughed at Kagome's 'joke' while Kagome smiled back wryly, she'd long since learned that it was easiest to casually brush off some of her lifestyle oddities as a joke. Attempts at realistic answers just tended to raise suspicion, and she wasn't a very good liar anyway.
"What about you, what's the coffee for?"
"Ouran host club, I'm their slave to pay off an eight million yen vase I broke on my first day."
Now it was Kagome's turn to laugh, "Wow, that's even better than my story." She wondered briefly at the grimace that crossed over Haruhi's face before saying, "it was nice seeing you again, good luck at Ouran."
"Thanks, good luck to you too." Haruhi replied.
The two girls turned to leave, and froze at the sight that met their eyes. Six impeccably dressed handsome young men were descending upon them with an irate hanyou in their midst who was swearing and trying unsuccessfully to break free of their clutches.
Even as Kagome's spirits sunk she thought halfheartedly, 'at least they're hiding him from the rest of the store, great eye candy, I mean... diversionary tactic...'
A tall princely blonde strode ahead of the rest and greeted them with "Haruhi! Look what we found! A new addition to our club, he's the perfect bad boy type!"
Orange haired twins, stationed on either side of Inuyasha, matching mischievous grins pasted on their faces, chorused "He has the coolest ears, and he's already into cosplay, now we have two toys!"
Haruhi grimaced as she recognized Kagome's missing friend, although Kagome had neglected to mention the dog ears... "Come on guys, he doesn't even go to our school, and he obviously doesn't want to join. Let him go."
"I'm afraid that's impossible," Kyouya replied, "he destroyed Tamaki's car, and is going to have to work to pay off the damages. His debt is even greater than yours Haruhi."
"Inuyasha!" Kagome cried out desperately, "how did you manage to do that, you were only out of my sight for a couple minutes!"
"I didn't do nothing," Inuyasha snarled, still trying to break free of the group's clutches. In addition to the evil twin bookends he had a blonde haired runt stuck to one leg and was held at the shoulders by a blank faced bodyguard of some sort. "One of those stupid metal contraptions attacked me outside."
Kagome groaned and closed her eyes in aggravation , "please don't tell me you used Tessaiga, if you unleashed a wind scar in the parking lot..."
"Keh, as if I'd need Tessaiga to take out one of those stupid things, I'm not an idiot. All I did was hit it out of the way."
"Thereby totaling an incredibly valuable vehicle, never mind potential psychiatric or physical damage done to the driver and occupants." Kyouya inserted, glasses flashing menacingly.
The twins cackled with laughter and tweaked Inuyasha's ears. "You're all ours now. Want to help us recover from our mental scarring?"
Kagome blanked for a moment. That sounded disturbingly familiar, now who else had aggressively propositioned Inuyasha...Jakotsu! Could a person be reincarnated in two bodies? Imagination kicking into overdrive, Kagome saw the entire band of seven reincarnated as high school students in her time, stealing Inuyasha away under false pretenses and enacting a horrible and twisted revenge upon their former nemesis. She was snapped back to reality by Haruhi's acerbic voice.
"It sounds to me like you lot nearly ran him over, and are trying to pin the consequences on him. Who was driving anyway?"
Tamaki struck a heroic pose beside his cohorts and proclaimed, "It was I, Haruhi, your beloved father, who led this journey into the mysteries of common life; how fortunate that our daring venture has led us not only to you my rose, but to a knight worthy of induction into our ranks."
"Sempai!" Haruhi growled warningly, but before she could unleash her scalding wrath upon the host club king Inuyasha lost it.
"Let go of my ears dammit!" he roared, finally wrenching free of his bizarre captors. Inuyasha darted over to stand protectively in front of Kagome. Unsheathing Tessaiga he glared at the insane group and the perturbed twins in particular. "I've had enough of this shit! You might smell normal, but there's no way you crazies are human."
Hikaru and Kaoru raised their eyebrows, impressed in spite of themselves.
"Wow, he really gets into character," Kaoru said.
"I'm a bit jealous," Hikaru replied.
"But no one can perform better than you Hikaru," Kaoru said dramatically, clasping his brother's hands.
"Truly Kaoru? Are you sure I can measure up? I haven't been replaced in your affections?" Hikaru sighed, gazing deeply into Kaoru's eyes.
"No one could take your place Hikaru."
Kagome stared at the twins, unsure what to make of this display of "brotherly love." Thus distracted, it took her a moment to notice Inuyasha raising his sword to attack. The twins and Tamaki remained cheerfully oblivious to the impending danger, and Kyouya stood his ground, impassively confident of his safety, but the others reacted to the obvious threat. Haruhi stumbled towards Kagome, crying "Wait!", and Hunny and Mori leapt forward to disarm the enraged hanyou, but before Haruhi could reach her, or the host club members stop Inuyasha, Kagome screamed "SIT!"
Inuyasha went smashing to the ground directly in front of Hunny, Mori, and an anxious Haruhi. Kagome flinched as the eyes of everyone turned first to the subjugated dog demon, and then to her. Attempting to temporarily ignore them, and the stares of surrounding shoppers who had noticed the ruckus, Kagome knelt down by Inuyasha.
"Kagome, what the heck do you think you're doing," Inuyasha growled, still pinned to the floor.
"I could ask you the same thing," Kagome whispered harshly, "What were you thinking attacking a bunch of humans?! And in a public place!"
"Fine, I'll kill them out in the woods or something." Inuyasha shot back, "better?"
"No! No killing or maiming! We're in my time, we go by my rules! Please just let me deal with this."
Inuyasha still looked mutinous, so she added, "try looking at it this way, you've saved me plenty of times in the feudal era, now it's my turn to help you." Seeing that this line of reasoning wasn't making any headway either she added, "Or I could just sit you until you black out and hand you over before they try to call the police. I'm sure they'd get sick of you in a few days and we could get back to shard hunting. Who knows, you might even learn a new technique to defeat Naraku." Inuyasha's look of horror assured Kagome that she'd finally broken through to him. "Okay, now please don't say anything, while I negotiate our escape."
Kagome stood to face the music and tried to filter through the various expressions. They all looked suspicious, as if slowly realizing that this all wasn't some game, the ones that worried her most though were Haruhi and scary glasses guy. Kagome had the sinking feeling that Haruhi was remembering her earlier comment about an irritable dog demon and feudal era adventures, and Kyouya was simply frightening.
He'd lowered his glasses, so she was getting a combination reflected light and penetrating stare attack, and his eyes darted between her blushing face and Inuyasha's subjugation necklace. Apparently it was too much to hope that he hadn't noticed the beads' glowing right before Inuyasha was yanked to the ground.
"How intriguing" Kyouya remarked, waiting expectantly for her to make some sort of explanation.
Kagome gulped, and saw that Inuyasha was clutching Tessaiga's handle, she'd have to make this fast. Too bad swinging a sword around wouldn't solve her problems this time, or maybe it could...
Dry mouthed she said, "I'm sorry about Inuyasha's rude behavior, sometimes he has these psychotic episodes. I probably shouldn't have brought him to the store; large crowds or invasion of personal space sometimes set him off." She could see that none of the boys bought her explanation and quickly continued. "If we find a way to compensate you for the destroyed vehicle will you consider his debt paid?"
Kyouya narrowed his eyes. "How do you intend to pay it off, by working at the host club? We're looking for a bad boy type, not a psychotic violent maniac, and we can't use you."
Inuyasha bristled beside her and Kagome forged ahead. "I was thinking more along the lines of material compensation." At this point, even Inuyasha was looking at her skeptically, wondering where she was going with this. "If you'll tell me how much we owe you, then I'll send you something of equal or greater value."
Kyouya was still eying her critically, but his stare had turned from penetrating to amused. "Very well. Expect to hear from me within a day concerning the full value of the car and our doctor's visits. If we have not recieved an acceptable form of payment within a week then we will track you down, and you will pay."
Kagome shivered, and tried to ignore the matching leers the twins were shooting at Inuyasha. Grabbing his hand she abandoned her cart full of ramen (resolving to switch stores and stock up later) and dragged him towards the exit. As they finally burst out of the store and she broke out into a sprint towards home Inuyasha spoke, "how the heck are you planning to pay them back Kagome?"
Kagome broke into a smile and simply said "Adamant Barrage."
A few days later the host club received a shipment of curiously shaped diamonds from the Higurashi residence. Reactions varied. Hunny and Mori maintained an external indifference. Hikaru and Kaoru moped about and planned a feudal era themed cosplay for their next club meeting. Tamaki bemoaned the loss of a perfect bad boy type, only to end up arguing with Renge what exactly an ideal bad boy was. Haruhi took her friend's escape from enforced servitude with equanimity, but kept casting envious glances at the box. Kyouya repressed his frustration at being outmaneuvered and calculated how best to profit from his new supply of spear shaped diamonds.
By the end of the day, all seven members possessed Kagome Higurashi's adress.
A/N: First one-shot, not really happy with the ending, but in the mood to post something. Sorry about the temporary halt to my other two stories. They will be continued, I just need to write the darn things... soon. Anyway, I'd love any comments or criticism.