---
" Great. Just great." Inuyasha growled as he hit the elevator button to the top floor of the building. "I wonder what I did wrong now. Guess I won't be going to the movies with you and the girls later."
"Aw. Come on. If you don't go, Kagome won't. And the only reason Sango agreed to go with me was because it was going to be a double date!"
"Yeah. She really doesn't trust you, does she?" Inuyasha chuckled.
"She just doesn't know the true me." Miroku huffed. "Anyway, Inuyasha, you must think positively. Maybe your brother had some other reason to call you to his office."
Inuyasha raised an eyebrow at his friend. "You don't know my brother very well. He never talks to me but to chew me out. Oh well, at least you'll get to meet Kaede. She's the greatest!"
Miroku grimaced. "I don't know why meeting a woman fifty years our senior will make me happy. Now if she was a shapely young blonde with more curves than brains that all CEOs have..."
Inuyasha rolled his eyes. "You watch way too much TV. Here's the floor. " Inuyasha stepped out of the elevator and went through the small lobby hoping to see Kaede. Instead, he was disappointed to see a young Asian woman behind the desk Kaede normally occupied.
"Not a blonde but I'm still impressed." Miroku chuckled a step behind his friend.
---
Kagura was not having an easy first day of work. She really was beginning to doubt her ability to pull off this assignment.
She had gotten the call from the temp agency she was officially a part of the previous afternoon. This morning she walked in, was given a terse "welcome to the team" pep talk (if you could call it that) by her employer, and then a list of duties he wanted completed and various preferences for things, like how he liked his coffee.
Since then, she hadn't seen or talked to the focused and busy man behind the door behind her. He was handsome and exotic, Kagura had to admit. With his white blonde long hair pulled back yet still a great contrast to his dark expensive suit, he really seemed too perfect to Kagura. Even more impressive though was his Japanese considering she had heard he had only been in the country for several months. His whole air about him commanded respect yet he seemed cold and distant.
Kagura would have probably be consumed with curiosity with her mysterious boss if she was given a moment's rest. Sesshoumaru Connor had made she had plenty of work to occupy her.
Kagura looked up from her computer screen. She punched the enter key to start transfer then smiled up at the two visitors that just walked (or rather swaggered) into the office.
"Why hello. Welcome to Cerberus Industries."
The first boy seemed about a couple years younger than herself and from the trademark white mane of hair, one could easily tell he was a relative of Sesshoumaru. But that's where the comparison stopped.
Kagura had never seen as many piercings on one person outside a rock video. While Kagura had never seen someone as immaculate as Sesshoumaru before, the boy in front of her was currently dressed in a rumpled, high collared, school boy's uniform whose shirt was untucked and unbuttoned displaying a bright yellow t-shirt proclaiming "Eat a Alice's BarBQ Shack." His hair was worn long and free and was streaked with the most artificial pink hair dye that Kagura could tell would have gotten him a week's worth of detention for "distracting the other students" in any Japanese high school she had been to.
Right behind him was obviously one first boy's classmates who was grinning foolishly at her. He was a young Japanese boy that was also dressed in a local high school's boy uniform but his looked in proper order. Three small earrings glinted from his lobes, with two on the left and only one on right as if to say "I'm cool enough to pierce both my ears like so many other cool people but I'm really prefer females."
"Is he in a meeting?" The first boy demanded, frowning at her.
"No. Would you- HEY!" Without another word to her, the unknown boy strode into Sesshoumaru's office.
---
"Don't you ever knock?" Sesshoumaru growled at his younger brother and looked up from the report he was reading. He nodded to his new secretary that hurried in after Inuyasha. "It's okay, Kaze-san. I was expecting to speak to my brother. Inuyasha, this is Kaze-san, she possibly will be here on a permanent basis." The woman bowed to Inuyasha before leaving the two brothers alone. Sesshoumaru gestured for his brother to sit down.
"What happened to Kaede!" Inuyasha demanded in English.
"I wish you would only use Japanese so you get used to using it conversationally."
"You already know my Japanese is good enough!" Inuyasha continued in English. He hated talking to his brother already since he never could get the upper hand. Speaking in a foreign language to his brother (who seemed equally smooth in both languages) made him even more nervous. "Why isn't Kaede here? You didn't replace her did you!?"
"I didn't." Sesshoumaru responded in English. Inuyasha could be stubborn at the oddest times. "She had an auto accident yesterday..."
"Is she alright?" Inuyasha gasped.
"I was about to tell you when you interrupted. She's probably coming back from the hospital today then she'll be on sick leave for a while. Just some simple fractures. Not life threatening but she won't be able to keep up the pace and she should take it easy. The woman out there is to fill in her place."
"You can't replace Kaede!"
"I know." Sess sighed closing his eyes and rubbing the bridge of his nose."Heavens knows, I could never replace the woman. Who else would give you love advice and tell you when you are being an idiot. Plus as an added bonus, she can do the job she was actually hired to do. Miss Kaze will just fill in while Kaede is on leave. And if she does a really good job I might hire her to be an assistant to Kaede."
Sesshoumaru didn't know why but talking to his half brother was always so draining. His whole demeanor and appearance grated on Sesshoumaru's nerves, who was praying the whole body piercing thing was just a phase. He really disliked Inuyasha's attempt to streak his hair red (Inuyasha's favorite color) especially since it always ended up that silly looking bright pink shade. Inuyasha just made everything extra difficult in Sesshoumaru's opinion.
"Good. I thought all this time in Japan awakened some weird school girl fetish in you." Inuyasha plunked himself in the chair across from his brother's desk and smirked at the annoyed look his brother gave him. Inuyasha then picked up a paperclip from the desk and straightened it and began his favored activity of fidgeting in front of his brother: paper clip sculpture!
"I'll have you know Miss Kaze is-" Sess paused and picked up a folder from one of the many neat piles of papers on his desk. He scanned to the pertinent information on Kagura's application. "25 years old."
"She doesn't look it."
"As if I would notice."
"And that's why I sometimes worry about you." Inuyasha tried not to laugh at the 'Curl up and die' look his brother gave him. "Not very healthy for a single guy."
"I meant as to why I hired her. Which I didn't, directly. The temp agency sent her and her resume seems good. Plus you know I would never allow myself into such a disgraceful practice as hiring someone for any reason besides that they are qualified. And-" Sesshoumaru leaned back in his chair, which was usually Inuyasha 's automatic notification that another social graces sermon was about to begin.
"Okay, okay. I get it. I would hope so that you don't hire secretaries for sexual reasons. Especially considering that creepy toady looking guy you used to have back at home." Inuyasha was rewarded with another sour look from his brother. "Well if that's it, I'd best be off. You look very busy and I shouldn't disturb you." Inuyasha quickly got up and headed for the door and almost made it. Almost.
"Get back here."
"Crap." Inuyasha muttered before sitting himself down again. Normally he wouldn't run away from anything but he had gone through this same scenario so many times before (and Kagome wanted to see that movie and she could be VERY scary at times.)
"I got another call from one of your teachers. Seems like you were being disruptive again."
"Feh." Inuyasha folded his arms and glared to the side. From the silence that followed he knew his brother was awaiting another answer. "He was just regurgitating the facts the book said. Which were wrong! Then he expected us to memorize them for another one of those stupid tests. Like I even want to go to a Japanese college. "
"And you pointed that out?"
"Of course. Then he sent me to the hall. Hasn't anyone heard about participatory education? In class discussions?"
"Yes. But they call it insubordination here. Inuyasha, you have to leave to fit in. I feel it's my responsibility to ground you and you have to..."
Sesshoumaru seemed to trail off in true 'I'm doing this for your own good fashion' in Inuyasha 's opinion, as he sat there glaring at the ugly abstract painting that was a requirement for upper scale offices. "Like you're my parents." He grumbled. Sesshoumaru was only a decade older than him yet he acted like several generations wiser since his parents died.
"What was that?" Sess's had acute hearing at the darnedest times according to his brother.
Inuyasha debated with himself on whether to actually respond with what he said or with his trademark "feh". But then he decided being grounded double time and having to go through Sesshoumaru's infamous 'If you are going to live in my house' sermons. It just wasn't worth it and would probably lead onto other sermons. Sesshoumaru seemed never to talk except to tell Inuyasha that he was a disgrace in someway. "Nothing, Sessh."
"Good. Now go tell that Mocco guy you hang out with-"
"Miroku."
"Whatever. Tell him to go home. He's probably out there trying to harass my new secretary. Cancel your plans. Pick up Rin from the daycare and go straight home." With that Sesshoumaru picked up a report and began reading it. Inuyasha knew he was dismissed and sullenly left the office. "Hmph. School girl fetish... The nerve of the boy..." Sesshoumaru grumbled to himself.
---
Kagura tiredly shuffled into her apartment. She looked around at the bleak undecorated room that still seemed cramped with only an unmade futon and two boxes, containing mostly only clothing.
"You would think I could afford better." She muttered while slipping out of the jacket and skirt of her suit and letting them lay where they landed, crumpled. Unbuttoning the top buttons on her long sleeved blouse along with her sleeve buttons, Kagura flopped onto the wrinkled sheets of her futon. She had promised herself to make it this afternoon, since she didn't have time in the morning. "That seems bloody well likely now."
Kagura doubted that she was getting up anytime that evening, even to call out for delivery because then she would have to get dressed again to greet the delivery boy at the door. She was just tired after being on her feet all that day.
Kagura closed her eyes and started to slip into sleep when her cell phone started to play "The Itsy Bitsy Spider." What would possess someone to program that song into the phone, she didn't know. She made a mental note to change the song the first chance she got.
She wanted to ignore it and go back to sleep but she knew who was calling her. The only person that had that number since he had given her the phone only yesterday. And the annoying bastard would just keep calling until he got an answer, so with great reluctance, Kagura crawled to the box with the phone in it and fished it out. "Kagura here."
"What? No hello for me?" The silky voice on the other line said.
"No. What do you want, Naraku?"
"Just checking up on my girl. I think I have the right. Did you find out anything?"
"I was only my first day!" Kagura couldn't help the small whine in her voice.
"So you didn't get anything?" Naraku's voice seemed to frown, obviously displeased.
"Well I got a disk of account histories but it'll take me days to analyze
it. And it's only a fraction of what I have access to so it'll take weeks
if not months."
"Then get to it."
"I will." ::When I damn well feel like it, asshole.:: Kagura mentally added. "I'll check in when I have something." she stated while lowering the phone to see where the blasted small button was on its face to hang it up.
"Wait!" Naraku hissed.
"What?" Kagura brought the phone back to her ear. "You have further orders?"
"No. You just forgot to say something."
Kagura growled. She hated Naraku's petty little mind games but she knew she had to play along with them whether she like to or not. "How silly of me." She tried to force the pleasant lilt to her voice that he required. "I love you, Daddy. Hope you have a pleasant evening. Good night!"
"You too, Kagura. Good night."
---
A/N: I hate naming things! The one chore of fic writing is naming things and people. I don't know the rules of naming in Japan. I have a tendency to find a noun I like and just giving it to someone.
Kaze: (Japanese) Wind
Connor: (Irish) Strong willed or hound-lover
Cerberus: (Greek) Three headed Demon Dog that guards Hades
As for why Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha have Japanese first names with an Irish last name and are obviously transplanted Americans... I haven't figured all that out. Might be that there father just thought the names sounded cool when he went through Japan for business.
And tell me if it's worth continuing. (I'm not too sure. I don't do romance too much.) If you have any suggestions, give them. Might get dark and angsty. Not my usual fare so I'm not too sure if people will like it and if I do it good.