AN: This is the third time I've done this... SORRY!
And let me say this once, this story is not a Kagome/Shippo story.
Disclaimer: The plot belongs to Clare Naylor. The characters belong to Rumiko Takahashi. But the words belong to me.
---
Dog Handling
By Hentai no Ai
Not So Sure---
Two figures sat in the middle of a secluded beach, nuzzling each other's necks. The woman's long raven hair whipped at the man's face as the wind blew around them. But the light breeze soon stopped leaving them in a comfortable silence other than the soft sound of the waves crashing.
The man's soft brown eyes locked onto the woman's lighter brown orbs with a serious look.
"Kagome," He whispered softly.
She looked at him with wide pleading eyes, "Not yet."
"Kagome," He said again, this time his voice was louder and clearer.
She turned her head away from him, again murmuring, "Not yet."
"KAGOME!" His tone had become more feminine and sounded annoyed.
The woman started blinking as the scene started to blur away and she closed her eyes to stop the wave of nausea that hit her as the world started spinning.
"KAGOME!" The woman opened her eyes to see her boss looking at her with a heated glare and frown.
"I'm sorry!" The woman squeaked before ducking behind a small stack of work she'd neglected.
"Kagome..."
"I'm really sorry, Ami! I just got tired..."
Her boss raised an amused eyebrow at her after looking at her computer for a short second,
"Tired of staring at this naked picture of Ken Hishima?"
Kagome looked at her computer then back at her boss with an embarrassed look.
Ami rolled her eyes at Kagome, "You get more work done than the people who have worked her for more than10 years. You really think you'd get in trouble for taking a break? I'm just waking you up because half of your co-workers are having a perfect view of your... photo."
"Oh," Kagome gave a small smile.
"Oh yeah, AND the fact that it's half past 6."
The younger woman's eyes widened, "Nani! I have to go!" She grabbed her purse and dashed towards the stairs not bothering with the slow elevators.
Ami sighed as she looked at the computer again, "Bye Kagome, I'll just close up for you." She closed each window until she reached a small essay heading off with, 'My To Do List'.
---
"Sango! I'm sorry I'm late!" Kagome had just rushed into a bar where her best friend was waiting.
A taller woman with her long dark brown hair swept up into a ponytail looked at her with a small, taunting smile, "Having dreams about Ken again?"
Kagome glared at her, "Sango, it's not funny! You know I'm not supposed to be fantasizing about other men. I'm getting married to Shippo!"
Sango sighed and shook her head slowly. Out of all her friends, she'd have to say Kagome was just about the craziest. The girl was only 23, a year younger than herself, and already she was getting married. Although, she had been going out with Shippo since their early years in high school.
"Kagome, it's okay! You only feel this way because you know this is it."
"Jeez Sango, you don't have to make it sound like a death sentence." Sango looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "I mean... there's always divorce."
"You've got a point there." Sango smiled with a shrug and continued sipping on her drink.
---
"Kami-sama, I look like a cow." Kagome stared at herself in the long mirror in the bridal store's dressing room. She was wearing one of the possible wedding dresses she and Sango had picked out.
"Let me see." Sango's voice came through the door. She opened the door bracing herself to see a beautifully fitting dress on her self-conscious friend.
Sango took one look at her a broke out into a grin, "If I were gay, I swear I'd jump you." The long, white dress looked great on Kagome. Her long black hair, with was currently in a messy bun, made her fair skin seem paler causing the already beautiful dress look wonder on the girl. The small, glistening beads looked like small diamonds on the elegant dress.
Kagome looked at her strangely, "Sango, I don't look good in this at all!"
"You can say that again," Kagura, the clerk, said in a disgusted tone. She turned towards Sango with the fakest smile either one of them had ever seen, "But you, you would look exquisite in these!"
Sango rolled her eyes, but was even more irritated when another woman walked into the bridal shop with an air of confidence (or arrogance, the choice is yours) following behind her.
Kagura quickly ran to her side, the smell of money leaking off the new customer. She started exclaiming about how wonderful she was going to look and how lucky and smart her fiancé was for picking her as a bride.
"I swear, when Ken puts that ring on my finger I'll just squeal with excitement." The woman said, already squealing and squeaking like a mouse with an amazingly high-pitched voice.
Sango turned back to Kagome with a reassuring smile, "How much do you want to bet that this Ken will be just over 3 feet high with a beard twice as long that trails when he's on his Harley? You're lucky to have Shippo! He has a well paying job, you've been together for more than 6 years, not to mention the fact that he's a cutie!"
The squeaking woman put on her dress and (again) squealed in delight as she saw her reflection. "Ken's going to fall in love with me all over again!"
"Of course he will, why wouldn't he? You look wonderful!" Kagura's head was so far up the woman's ass it was a wonder she was still breathing.
Kagome again was in the dressing room trying on another dress that looked 'terrible' on her when Sango suddenly whispered, "Don't come out! Don't come out!"
A masculine voice was heard, "Ah, Yura you look wonderful."
Said woman (or said squealer) jumped as she heard the voice. "Ken," She said in a teasing, still squeaky and irritating, tone. "You know you're not supposed to see me before the wedding!"
Kagome pulled the door open to see the grungy Ken and was surprised to see the man who happened to be the apple of her eye. The most famous underwear model, multi-millionaire, suave, sexy, and smart Ken Hishima.
"SANGO!"
---
Kagome sat on a train, rocking and bumping along with it. She was on her way to her parents' house for some advice on her wandering mind. The fact that she worried more about what other men thought of her than her betrothed...
'Maybe this is normal,' She thought as the train rolled on. It could just be the pressure right? She was taking a big step after all.Maybe it's not meant to be... A small voice was nagged at the back of her mind. This wasn't the first time Kagome heard it and she wasn't surprised to hear it again.
'Or maybe you're wrong' She countered to the irritating yet seemingly right voice.
Don't forget about the other's...'From when I was 6?' She raised a brow and people watched her as strange expressions took over her face while she sat by herself.
No, Inuyasha...
"Inuyasha...?" Kagome breathed out the name in surprise. Inuyasha had been her first love. Her first... everything.
Her mother was the type who would go on vacation and bring her first 10 'best' friends and their kids. This year's choice was in America. She'd decided to go to New York. A very random and very small city in upstate New York. The most boring spot in the state, they were a long three hours away from the famously busy city. All 30 of them stayed in one of her extremely rich relative's mansion. One day their parents had decided to go on a five-day trip, and all the teens somehow found their way to Manhattan for their own mini vacation.
None of them, especially Kagome (or so she thought), knew how to speak English and they were all suffering (actually, just her) from the lack of the talent of being bilingual.
She was going around buying items she thought to be great and rare souvenirs that weren't really all that uncommon in the busy street markets. She bought one green grape thinking she stumbled upon a great treasure. But when she saw a boy with strange yet beautiful long silver hair and even stranger golden eyes she wanted to take him home.
She figured he was American because silver hair and golden eyes were just not something you saw in Japan. He was wearing a red vest that showed off his muscular arms and a pair of black jeans that made him look like a bad boy. But those ears were making her rethink that decision.
Kagome watched him as he went to a vender and left with a very irritated look gracing his rugged yet beautiful features.
She suddenly found herself on the ground with her small brown paper bag with the single grape a few feet away from her.
A clawed hand was suddenly in her line of vision and she looked up to the boy picking up her bag and then reaching for her.
He looked inside her bag and muttered in Japanese, "What an idiot! She bought one grape!"
She frowned at him, "Baka!"
He turned to her a scowl own his face, "What did you just say?"
"You heard me."
"You've got a lot of nerve, do you know who you're talking to?"
"An asshole?"
And so their relationship began. An hour later they were telling each other everything and two hours after that they were rolling around in the sand at a private beach, and they weren't making sand castles.
Kagome blinked rapidly realizing the train had finally stopped. She got off and got a cab to her parents' home.
---
"Kagome! What are you doing here?" Kagome's mother welcomed her into the house with a warm smile.
"I need to talk to you about-" She was cut off as someone spoke behind her.
"Kagome! What's up?"
Kagome whirled around screaming, her immediate reaction to the unfamiliar deep voice. "Who the hell are you?" She saw her younger, now 15, brother.
"Oh my goodness! Souta!" She hugged her brother and looked up at him. He had her by just about 4 inches. "Finally! You've reached puberty!"
Souta softly pushed her away to glare at her, "I wouldn't be talking if I were you."
"Go ahead and try. I'll make sure mom knows what really happened to all her lotions-"
"Gotta go!" He dashed out the door before Kagome could finish the sentence.
"Hmm, do you want some tea?" Her mother asked her after leaving the kitchen with a cup, steam rising from the hot liquid.
"Thanks, mom." Kagome took the tea and began sipping as she sat on a cream-colored leather couch.
"What did you want to talk about?" Her mother asked her as she sat across from her in a love seat that matched the couch.
"I'm not sure about Shippo..."
"Oh! I was wondering when you were going to come to me about that! Kei! Can you come down here?" Mrs. Higurashi called down her husband. Kagome's father came down the stairs looking slightly confused until he saw Kagome. "Oh, Shippo?"
"Ok, when did you guys plan this?" Kagome watched her parents with a confused expression on her face, did they expect the engagement to be a failure or something?
"Don't know what you're talking about," said her father. "But we do know that it's normal for you to feel this way."
"How would you even know what I'm feeling?"
"Because you're mother and I went through it when we were getting married. Just about everyone does. You've been with him for so many years now, and looking at some other men doesn't mean you should be filing for divorce papers before you say 'I do'."
"Oh, ok." Kagome realized she just wasted an entire hour when she could have had this conversation on the phone.
"Is that all honey?"
"Yeah," She got up to leave, relieved that her mind wandering a little didn't mean she didn't want to get married to her high school sweetheart.
---
"Shippo!" Kagome waved him over to the table she was at in the bar with Sango. They were talking about Sango's trip to Florida. "Yeah, Sesshoumaru has this wonderful villa there. But I have to admit, Melbourne doesn't look fun..."
"That's because it isn't. I remember when Mrs. Higurashi and her friends, including my mother, took us on vacation there. We all had to sneak off to Miami to find something to do." Kagome smiled when Shippo sat next to her at the small table. He gave her a small smile and a peck on the cheek, unlike their other meetings when he would start making out with her like they were in their bedroom leaving Kagome very red... and a little horny.
'I wonder what's wrong?' Kagome threw a concerned glance at Shippo, one that he didn't seem to notice.
"When are you leaving again?"
Sango rolled her eyes at the couple, "I think this wedding is stressing you two out a little too much. Again, I'm leaving in two days."
"Already?" Kagome suddenly had a panicked look on her face. "But, Sango! What about the wedding? When are you coming back?"
"Goodness! Calm down, Kagome! I'll be back just in time for the wedding, a little time after the summer's end."
Sango smiled when Kagome let out a relieved sigh, but neither of them noticed the small frown on Shippo's lips.
---
"What do you mean it's over?" Shippo glared at Kagome for the outburst and then pointed to his sensitive ears.
"I don't give a fuck about your youkai hearing!" Kagome was sitting on their bed and shaking with rage.
"Kagome, I just can't do this anymore." Shippo stayed calm as he talked to the outraged Kagome.
"Meaning...?" Kagome tried to relax but even she could hear the anger in her voice.
"I just... can't. Okay?" He turned around with a small duffel bag in his hand. "I'll come back for the rest later."
Kagome jumped off the bed and stood in front of her door, "You think you're off the hook?" She glared at him and backed up against the door. "I do not think so."
Shippo sighed as he saw the determined look in her eyes, "Well, what do you want me to do?"
"I want you to sit on that bed and explain to me exactly why you've decided to break up with me 2 months before our wedding!"
He sighed again and made his way towards the bed, "Fine." He pointed to the spot on the bed next to him and Kagome obliged.
So for the next two hours, Shippo explained to Kagome why he no longer wanted to marry her. How he felt like he was no longer in love with her, but he did still love her. That he was always thinking of other women when he was at work or with friends. And Kagome told him how that happened to her, too, and her parents told her everyone feels that way before getting married. But Shippo continued, saying many of his friends told him that, but he just didn't want to be with her like that anymore. That's when Kagome let him go and after she saw his car drive away from her apartment building, she called Sango.
Not once throughout her talk with Shippo did one tear slip. But as soon as she began retelling it to Sango with detail, she cried harder than she'd ever cried in her life and nothing Sango said could help her stop.
---
AN: I'm actually going to update this time! The only reason I took it off and put it back up is because I would definitely not read a story that has two chapters with a nearly 2 year posting difference. It's sneaky but...That's my style.
Oh yeah, that thing with the grape. I don't know much about Japan and researching is just not my thing, but I'm pretty sure there are grapes in country. So let's just say that Kagome is deathly allergic to grapes and her parents kept them away from her and somehow she's never seen one in her entire life (or doesn't remember).
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Review... please?