The Rat Next Door:
Kage-Tora no Tsume, once again.
This story is a sort of fanfiction-based-off-another-fanfiction.
It features a 'situation' from TohrutheGreat's 'How to Build a Fire', which I loved. We were coming up with so many good ideas, but could only fit so many into the story, so...PRESTO! You have 'The Rat Next Door'.
Now, if you haven't read 'How to Build a Fire' I suggest you do so. Otherwise, it'll be hard to understand what's going on.
Also, forgive me if the formatting isn't quite right. Transterring the story from the laptop, which has a trippy version of Microsoft word, to the internet-connected Vista computer which has some program like workd Document, and then posting it here, it...well...tends to screw things up quite a bit.
It deleted an entire sentence randomly from the middle! *sigh*
Well...with the normal disclaimers and a big 'thanks' to Tohru, we begin...
Miroku sat in a large, comfortable armchair in the living room of his apartment, contemplating what to do next. His next door neighbor, Kagome, and her houseguest, the lovely Miss Sango, had discovered his latest 'rat hole', as they all referred to it as, and had sealed it up.
"Where to place the next one?" Miroku mused.
Well, he figured, the simplest thing to do would be to knock open one of his old holes, wouldn't it?
But no. Kagome knew the locations of all the old holes, and was on the constant lookout for any of them re-opening.
"Location, location..." Miroku muttered, walking the perimeter of his house.
Where to put his next hole?
Then he had a great idea. What better place to put a spy hole then...
"Her bedroom!" he concluded, darting off to get his drill.
"Sango?" her little brother's voice carried from the other room.
"What is it, Kohaku?" she called.
"Someone's drilling a hole in the wall over my bed!"
Sango and Kagome glanced at each other, before both running into the boy's bedroom. Sure enough, there was a fresh hole in the wall.
Kagome climbed up on Kohaku's bed and called into the gap.
"Miroku! I'm warning you! If you don't stop drilling holes in the wall of my house...!"
As Kagome paused to come up with a decent threat, laughter was heard from the other side of the wall.
Sango shook her head in amazement.
That letcher just wouldn't give up.
"That's it!" Kagome huffed, "I'm going next door!"
The laughter that came from the next apartment over ceased abruptly at this statement and Kagome smiled grimly as she walked out of the room. Sango and Kohaku, lacking anything better to do, followed.
The two of them watched as Kagome stalked over to the next apartment, and pounded on the door.
After a few seconds, there was no answer, and Kagome knocked again.
The third time she knocked, Kagome paused a second before yelling at the door 'Miroku, I know you're there! Answer this door NOW!'.
But the gym teacher failed to show his face, and Kagome ended up stalking back to her own apartment in defeat.
"Just you wait, Miroku! You've got it coming, now! This is war!" she called over to his house.
The three of them returned inside, and Kagome slammed her front door closed. Then she sighed, letting her anger deflate.
"I'll go get the plaster..."
Miroku scanned the walls of his house.
He must have miscalculated somewhere...
The hole he had drilled wasn't in Sango's room; it was in her brother's.
"So the room I thought was Kohaku's must be Sango's room!" he grinned. Now where had he put that drill?
Sango lifted the end of the sheet, letting air catch underneath it so it settled across the make-shift bed nicely.
She and Kagome had been discussing what to do about the letcher, and they both agreed that he was probably going to try to drill into the wall of her bedroom, so Sango was spending the night in Kagome's room, on the couch.
Kohaku, who thought it would be fun to help them discourage the gym teacher's lecherous habits, was camped in the hall outside of Sango's bedroom, a water pistol (that closely resembled a gun) and flashlight at the ready.
His hope was to hold up the gym teacher through the rat hole.
Sango chuckled.
"I wonder if he'll fall for it?"
Miroku placed the drill against the wall and pressed the trigger, causing the blade to spin with a quiet 'whrrrrrrr'. He watched as white dust from the siding compiled on his floor.
Practically salivating at the thought of seeing Sango in sexy pajamas, the gym teacher rounded out the hole.
As he was about to press his eye to the wall, something poked through the hole. Something metallic.
"Yipes!" Miroku yelped, recognizing the barrel of a hand gun.
He scrambled backwards over the other side of the couch.
She was serious when she said to cut it out! Miroku thought, desperately trying to hide himself as the gun barrel swept the perimeter of the room.
He tried to sneak out the door, but as he crawled in that direction, the gun turned to point at him.
"N-now S-Sango! D-don't do anything rash!" he begged, scrambling to his feet.
"BANG!"
Miroku winced. But nothing happened.
It took a second for his brain to realize that the gun hadn't gone off.
As he opened his eyes slowly, he heard a little boy's laugh, and saw the gun barrel being drawn back through the hole.
"Kohaku...!" Miroku growled.
The gym teacher stalked over to the gap and glared in.
"Kohaku! I know you're over there!" he called.
The only reply was the gun barrel re-appearing in the hole and squirting him in the eye with a stream of water.
Grumbling complaints and curses as he rubbed his eye with a fist, Miroku retreated. For tonight, he was defeated.
Unless...
"Two can play at that game." the gym teacher muttered, running toward his storage closet. He had a water gun too.
Kagome opened her eyes.
Something had woken her, but she couldn't remember what.
She lay in bed, staring at the ceiling for another minute, trying to figure out what it had been, but then she heard it again.
A quiet yelp. The kind that comes from children after they've been sent to bed, but are still up playing.
Kagome stood, glancing over at Sango. The assistant troop leader was still sound asleep.
Quietly slipping out of the room, Kagome made her way down the hall.
Her suspicions were confirmed as she came to Sango's room and heard giggling from inside.
Peeking in the door, she had to pull away sharply to keep from getting hit by a stream of water.
"What on Earth...?!"
Kagome glanced into the room again.
Kohaku held his water gun pointed at one of Miroku's rat holes, sending short bursts of water through the gap with surprising accuracy.
Every now and then, a squirt of water would come through the hole from the other side of the wall, and Kagome presumed that Mirkou was less skilled with a water pistol than Kohaku.
With a sigh, she stepped into the room, turning on the light.
The water-fight instantly froze.
"Miroku, seal up that hole right now, or so help me I'll feed the garden hose through it and flood your apartment." she called.
There was a slight scraping and rustling from next door, and the gap was quickly filled up with plaster.
Kagome shook her head.
"Let's get to sleep, Kohaku. Seven O'clock comes early." she said, turning off the light and leaving the room. "I suppose Miroku doesn't know that I don't own a garden hose."
Sango leaned into the shower, adjusting the water temperature. As she went to fetch her clothes, though, her eyes detected a strange dark patch on the wall.
Upon closer examination, her suspicions were confirmed. Bored into the wall of Kagome's shower was one of that gym teacher's rat holes.
Sango shook her head, reaching to turn off the water. She wasn't going to take a shower if he was watching! But her hand froze on the knob as an idea formed in her head.
Wait a second...
She stepped into the shower, pressing herself against the wall so as not to get her bathrobe wet, and reached up to grasp the shower head.
The hole was right in front of her.
She turned the water temperature up, until steam swirled around her.
"Be down in a minute, Kagome. I'm getting in the shower." Sango called, hoping to lure out the 'rat'.
Sure enough, the hole was soon occupied by the familiar blue eye.
Sango turned the shower head so that the scalding water poured into the hole.
A satisfied smile crossed her face as she heard a yelp of pain from the other side of the wall. Leaving the water running, (and hopefully flooding his house) Sango stepped back into the bathroom as there was a light rap on the door.
"Did you call me, Sango?" Kagome's voice asked.
The assistant troop leader opened the door.
"It was nothing, Kagome. I just found another hole."
Kagome sighed in annoyance.
"That Miroku! I'm going next door RIGHT NOW, and...!" the girl started to threaten.
Sango placed a hand on her shoulder, flashing Kagome a smile.
"Don't worry, I already dealt with him." she nodded toward the shower. Realizing what she meant, Kagome also smiled.
"Let's hope that keeps him busy for a while."
Miroku mopped up more of the water, shaking his head in wonder.
They were clever.
So far, the girls had managed to foil his plans, and had discovered every one of his rat holes.
Squeezing water from the towel he held out into the sink, Miroku glanced at his latest rat hole. He had shoved a towel into the gap to stop the water from flooding in, and it had mostly worked, but not before he had two inches of water on his bathroom floor. He sighed.
"I suppose that's what I get for making the rat hole somewhere so obvious." he said to himself. "I'll just have to hide it better next time."
Sango gently brushed the small green leaves out of the way, pouring the glass of water she held into the plant close by the roots. As she was about to let the leaves settle back into place, though, a familiar dark circle caught her eye.
"Kagome, I found another hole." she called.
"Again?!" the young teacher came into the room, still holding one of the papers she was grading. She sighed. "I'm all out of plaster. I guess we'll have to patch it later."
"What should we cover it with, for now?" Sango asked.
Kagome thought for a second, then smiled.
"I know..."
Miroku walked over to his latest hole, a towel wrapped around his dripping hair. He had just gotten out of the shower, and wished to do some 'sight-seeing' before he went to work. As he pressed his eye to the hole, though, he let out a surprised cry. The girls next door had covered their side of his hole with a yellow sticky-note. On it was written one word:
Busted.
And at the bottom was a picture of a cartoon rat with a mousetrap on his tail.
Leaning back, disappointed, Miroku scanned his wall, which was peppered with round plaster patches, for the location of his next hole.
Kohaku edged a bit to the left, angling the plastic cup he held so that the large tarantula couldn't escape from the corner. Kagome and his sister had gone out shopping, and just after they left, he had discovered this large arachnid in Kagome's house. He had managed to chase it into a corner, and was trying to catch it. It was really fast and really big, almost as big as his hand, and that made catching it hard. But he nearly had it now.
Lightning quick, Kohaku leaped at the spider, pinning it beneath the cup.
As the tarantula pushed at the cup with surprising strength for its size, Kohaku grabbed a paper plate that he had nearby and slipped it beneath the cup. With the tarantula now tucked safely inside, Kohaku stood and began walking toward the front door to dump it outside.
That was when he noticed the rat hole being drilled into the wall down by the floor.
Kohaku shook his head.
Miroku was at it again.
He would have to block it off after he got rid of the tarantula...
Kohaku paused, his eyes lighting up with the boyish joy of coming up with a dirty trick to play on someone.
He knelt beside the newest gap, waiting for the gym teacher to look through.
"There!" Miroku grinned triumphantly. "Perfect angle for seeing up skirts!" The gym teacher let out a chuckle, peering into the hole.
He hoped that Sango was home...
But as he lay on the ground and peered into the hole, the view from the other side was suddenly blocked by something big and hairy, with lots of legs.
A tarantula.
It began to crawl toward him quickly.
"Eeeeeyyyyyaaaaahhh!" Miroku flung himself back from the wall as the hairy monster crawled out.
The gym teacher leaped up on the nearest piece of furniture, climbing as high as he could while trying to keep an eye on the tarantula.
As he watched, though, it darted beneath the sofa, and he lost track of it.
"Where is it? Where is it?!" he asked himself quietly, looking around the room from his perch. The spider was nowhere to be seen, though.
The gym teacher gently climbed down to the floor, glancing around nervously. He couldn't see where the arachnid had gone, and that made him nervous. That spider was gigantic!
Miroku grabbed a broom from the corner, and proceeded to patrol his house.
Poking the head of the broom under various pieces of furniture, he let out a sigh of relief when nothing darted out.
But as he swept the broom under the low coffee table in his living room, a slight movement on the broom handle caught his eye.
The tarantula was on the broom handle, and was swiftly climbing up toward him. The gym teacher let out a cry, dropping the broom, and fled into the kitchen.
Panting, he looked around desperately.
There had to be something here that he could kill it with...
He picked up a flyswatter off the countertop and ran into the other room, only to beat a hasty retreat back into the kitchen as the spider charged at him.
"This is too flimsy..." he muttered, tossing the flyswatter aside.
What did he have here that was big and heavy enough to kill that monster?
Miroku paused.
Could he kill it? I mean, this wasn't your normal house spider here, this was like, Godzilla-spider! You didn't just step on this thing...
The gym teacher began digging through his cabinets to find something.
He took out a cast-iron frying pan, hefting it to test the weight.
This might work...
But then the thought of spider guts smeared all over his cook-wear made him put it back. There had to be something else...
Before he could find anything, though, the tarantula ran into the kitchen.
Miroku let out a yell and climbed up on the countertop.
The monster tried to follow him, and Miroku opened the window and climbed outside. As he looked in, the tarantula climbed onto his countertop and looked out the window at him.
Miroku watched, half hoping that the tarantula would follow him outside and be out of his house, and half hoping that it wouldn't come any closer.
But, before he could decide which he would prefer, a breeze kicked up, and the window slammed shut.
The gym teacher got a very bad feeling as he heard the small 'click' of a lock.
Almost triumphantly, the spider turned and climbed back into his kitchen.
Miroku crept back over and tried to open the window.
Sure enough, it was locked.
With a groan, the gym teacher darted around to the front door.
As he had thought - locked.
The back door was the same.
Getting desperate, he balanced on top of the window ledge and pulled himself up to a second-story window.
It wasn't locked, and he managed to get it open a few inches.
With much difficulty, Miroku managed to squeeze himself through the window, and sprawled out on the floor.
With a sigh, he let his head rest against the carpet.
Only to leap to his feet as he remembered the monster.
Grabbing the nearest weapon, which happened to be an umbrella, he snuck down the stairs, jabbing the umbrella into every dark corner and under every piece of furniture.
After a complete search of the living room, he finally got up enough courage to enter the kitchen.
A few jabs under the kitchen table turned up nothing. Likewise, under the fridge and stove were also tarantula-free.
Miroku pulled open a few drawers, then walked over to the line of jars that he kept along his countertop.
Miroku cautiously lifted the lid on one of the jars.
Peeking inside, he was relieved to find that it was empty.
Miroku paused for a second, realizing what he was doing.
"Ha-ha! I'm such an idiot!" he laughed, "It's a bug! How would it have gotten in there?"
As he set the lid back on, one of the other lids popped open and the 'bug' crawled out of the adjacent jar and onto his hand.
With a very feminine shriek, Miroku flicked the tarantula off his hand and ran headlong into the other room.
Or rather, the kitchen door frame, and then the other room.
The spider landed in the sink with a splash, and crawled out, dripping wet and covered in soap suds.
As it scurried into the other room after Miroku, the gym teacher climbed atop the coffee table, shrieking 'it's rabid'!
The tarantula prowled around the bottom of the table, then began climbing one of the table legs.
The gym teacher leaped over to the couch as the arachnid scampered atop the table.
There was a split-second stare-down, Miroku allowing himself a grin.
The spider couldn't get him now!
But that bug just loved proving him wrong.
It backed up to the far side of the table, scampered forward quickly, and took a flying leap at Miroku.
The gym teacher screamed as the tarantula clung onto his leg, and began running headlong across the house screaming 'get it off'.
He darted out onto the front lawn and began rolling in the grass; a desperate attempt to dislodge it.
It actually fell off, but began running back toward the house.
"No you don't!" Miroku yelled at it, scrambling to his feet, "You aren't locking me out again!"
He was vaguely aware of his neighbor across the street giving him a strange look, but he ignored it.
The gym teacher beat the spider to the door and turned, slamming it behind him. The house shook with the force of the action, then all was silent for a second.
Miroku slowly let out a breath.
He had it locked outside.
He chuckled softly, locking the door, then broke into a demonic laugh of voictory, striding back toward thr living room.
Picking up the broom he had previously used, he began to walk over to his storage closet, to put it away.
"Ha! That stupid spider thought it could outsmart me!" he laughed, flinging the closet door open.
The shelf inside was at eye level, and as he leaned into the closed to put the broom away, he found himself face-to-face with an all-too-familiar hairy insect.
"!!!"
Kagome pulled her car into the driveway and turned off the ignition. As the car's engine became still, and the radio faded into silence, Kagome glanced over at her neighbor's house. Every door and window in Miroku's entire house was open, and the gym teacher was running in and out of the open front door with a broom in his hand, swatting at something desperately.
"What in the world...?" Sango asked quietly, also watching the frantic gym teacher.
The two glanced at one another.
"Best not to ask. I don't think we want to know." Kagome said.
Sango nodded.
"Eeeeeeyaaaaaah!"
They both looked at Miroku.
"That sounds pretty serious..." Sango muttered.
"Maybe we should just check..." Kagome agreed.
The two made their way cautiously over to the neighboring apartment.
Miroku had temporarily vanished inside, and the noise had ceased for the moment, but both girls were wary.
And with good reason.
No sooner had they reached the doorstep, then Miroku came flying out, the broom grasped in both hands and held over his head.
They both had to duck to avoid being hit.
"Miroku, what on earth are you doing?" Kagome asked, dodging the broom a second time as Miroku spun around, yelling in surprise when he found them on his porch.
"Th-there's...monster...! In my house!" he panted, jabbing a finger toward the inside of his apartment.
"Monster?" Sango asked, shooting Kagome a glance.
"Massive, gigantic tarantula!" the gym teacher gasped. "Help me get rid of it!"
"I have no intention of dealing with monster-spiders. I dislike normal spiders enough as it is." Kagome said.
With a groan, Miroku hesitantly re-entered his house.
The other two began back to their own apartment as the gym teacher screamed from inside the other apartment.
Without a second glance at Miroku, the two girls entered the house.
"Hey, Kohaku!" Sango called as they stepped inside and Kagome turned to unlock the front door, "We're back! Anything happen?"
"You had a big tarantula in your house, Miss Kagome. I got rid of it." Kohaku reported, coming in from the other room.
"How ironic." the teacher said, "Miroku says he's got a tarantula in his house too..." her voice faded as she connected the dots.
"Oh, Kohaku..." Sango laughed, also realizing what had happened. "That wasn't very nice..."
"He probably deserved it, though." Kagome giggled.
The three of them burst into laughter as another shriek came from the arachnophobic gym teacher next door.
Miroku swatted again at the spider with the broom he held as it charged him. This time, his blow actually connected, and the tarantula went flying off the porch to land in the tall grass of his yard.
He slammed the door shut, locking it quickly, and leaned up against it with a sigh. This time, it was definitely gone.
With the monster vanquished, he was safe to view the girls next door from his new rat hole. With a grin, the gym teacher lay down on the ground and pressed his eye to the hole.
He had a few seconds of ecstasy when he saw that Sango was wearing a skirt...and black panties, for that matter... but then Kohaku pointed out the hole, and the two Miko scout leaders came over to investigate it.
"He's there, alright." Kagome muttered in disgust, and the hole was blocked for a minute by her brown eye.
His vision became unobstructed once again, and Miroku glanced around, hoping Sango was on her feet.
"Hey, Kohaku!"
Sango's voice came from beside the rat hole in the other apartment, and Miroku started slightly.
"What did you do with that other tarantula?"
"TARANTULA?!?!?!?!?" Miroku leaped back from the wall with a yell, prepared to run for his life, but stopped when he heard laughter from next door. They were only kidding.
Alright. Miroku thought, pressing his back against the wall as if to keep out the laughter from the other side. If they wanted all-out war, that's exactly what they were going to get!
That night, Miroku got out his drill and a chisel, and went to work.
By sunrise, Kagome's wall had exactly 357 rat-holes in it.
"WAAAAAAURRGH!!! Mirokuuuuu!"
Sango and Kohaku ran out of their bedrooms, each in various stages of getting ready for school that morning, as the young teacher yelled.
"Kagome, what is...OH MY LORD!" Sango yelped incredulously.
Their wall looked like a piece of Swiss cheese.
"Whoa, what happened?" Kohaku asked in shock.
"That Miroku...!" Kagome snarled, "He's done it this time!"
Sango walked over to the wall.
"It's practically transparent! I can see his entire apartment!" she said.
Kagome walked over to the phone and began dialing.
"Are you calling the police, Miss Kagome?" Kohaku asked.
"I should, but I'm calling someone else."
"Who?"
"The landlady..."
Sango smirked.
"That's a good idea. Something tells me that she won't be too happy about this."
"I wonder if Miroku'll be evicted?"
"If we're lucky." Kagome listened to the phone in silence for another second, "Ah yes, is this Miss Keiko? I was wondering if I could have you come check out the ceiling in our apartment...yes. Yes, there seems to be a leak..."
Miroku walked over to the wall, dusting the last bit of sheetrock powder from his shirt.
He had fallen asleep on the couch last night and had woken up only a few minutes ago. It was late, and he had a feeling that Kagome and Sango had already left, but it was worth checking anyway.
Sure enough, the apartment was deserted.
"Hm," Miroku mused, staring at the peppered wall, "I'm surprised that they didn't say anything to me about this. I mean, it's not like they didn't notice - it's pretty obvious..."
There was a knock on the door and Miroku couldn't stop a stupid smile from crossing his face. The girls had noticed after all.
"Have you come over to apologize about the tarantula?" Miroku asked coyly through the door.
"I don't know anything about a tarantula, but you had BETTER have a really, REALLY good excuse for destroying the wall of your apartment, Miroku!"
The gym teacher plastered himself back against the door in a panic.
"The landlady!" he squeaked.
"You BET it's me! Open up the door THIS SECOND! You have a LOT of explaining to do!"
Miroku tried to keep himself from sobbing pathetically.
He was dead this time.
Kagome pulled into her driveway to find Miroku outside, re-painting the fence along the apartments.
Trying not to giggle, she got out of the car.
"Hello Miroku. Is this your other job?"
"Other job my foot! You sicked the landlady on me!" he accused, pointing a dripping paintbrush.
Sango laughed.
"We didn't sic her on you, Miroku. We asked her to take a look at a leak in out ceiling and, well, she must have seen that you aerated our apartment."
"She threatened to evict me!" he practically squeaked, "She made me not ONLY patch up the entire wall, but I have to re-paint the fence, re-paint the apartments, trim the hedges, mow everyone's lawns, wash all the windows, AND I have to clean all the gutters for all the apartments!"
Sango smirked.
"So I guess you're not as close to the land-lady as you thought."
He glared, then turned back to painting, muttering complaints under his breath as the two girls laughed.
The two went inside to their now rat-hole free apartment to find a note from the landlady:
'Just let me know if a certain someone causes you any more trouble. Any plaster that you have to buy, I'll take out of his rent bill.'
Kagome and Sango hugged each other, laughing.
They had won!
Little did they know, next door, a grumbling, paint-splotched gym-teacher was plotting revenge.
Miroku worked carefully at one of the plaster patches.
Wiggling the knife slightly as it got stuck, he completed a full circle around it. With a grin, Miroku pulled the plaster from the wall, exposing one of his old rat-holes. Picking up the piece of glass that he had prepared, he slipped it into the opening. He had painted it with a coating similar to the tint on car windows, except that the outside color was pink, not black.
It would blend into the wall, so the girls would never see it.
The lecherous gym teacher grinned.
He had them this time!
Miroku returned the tools to their places, then returned to the new and improved rat hole.
Smiling, he peered through.
Thunk!
"Oh, geez!"
Sango turned quickly.
She had been sweeping the floor for Miss Kagome, but hadn't been paying close enough attention, and the broom handle had just hit something.
"That sounded like glass..." she muttered, looking for the damage.
To her surprise, there was a small black hole in the wall.
Had she put a hole through the sheetrock?
Then Sango heard the moan from the adjoining apartment.
Growling, she looked through the hole.
Sure enough, Miroku lay half-senseless on the floor, a black eye starting to show and a broken piece of glass on the floor.
Her mind working quickly, she went back to her room.
Digging out one of her police belts, Sango took out an old smoke-bomb blank that she had.
It closely resembled a grenade, but it was a dud.
Smiling, she returned to the rat-hole.
On the other side, Miroku was just sitting up.
Pulling the pin out, she pushed it through to the other side.
Miroku sat up as something hit the floor in front of him.
It looked like...
"A grenade?!" he yelped, springing to his feet.
Miroku looked around desperately.
Where was the pin?!
If he could put it back in, the grenade wouldn't go off...
But it was nowhere to be seen.
Deciding not to risk his neck more than a few seconds, he fled the room.
Miroku ran out of his house and flung himself into the grass.
He lay there for a minute, face down, his hands over his head protectively.
Nothing happened.
Another minute or so passed, and still nothing happened.
It was a fake.
The gym teacher, growling in annoyance, slowly looked up.
And found himself face-to-face with Godzilla spider.
"!"
The young Miko-scout assistant looked up from her magazine at the shriek from next door, smirked to herself, and returned to reading with a smile.
Sango ran a brush through her hair with one hand while she pulled the hem of her shirt down with her other hand. As she glanced in the mirror to adjust her collar, she saw a flash of movement from the back wall. A hole was being drilled in her bedroom wall.
Pretending that she hadn't seen it, Sango leaned back, examining herself in the mirror.
"Oh, there's a spot on this shirt..." Sango said to herself, but loud enough for the letcher to hear. She began to unbutton her shirt, to keep the gym teacher plastered against the other side of the gap, as she walked across the room, out of view of the hole. Then, she picked up a broom from the corner of her bedroom and crept back over, making sure to keep out of sight. As she neared the hole, she held the broom handle at the ready.
Sango leaned down and peered into the hole.
Sure enough, Miroku's blue eye was staring back at her.
Sango leaned back and quickly poked the broom handle through the gap.
Miroku slammed his palms against the wall, jerking his face back as the broom handle nearly got his eye.
"Yikes!"
He grabbed the broom handle and held it, so Sango couldn't pull it back through for another shot, and called into the hole.
"Woah, there! Take it easy, Sango! You nearly got me in the eye with that!"
"That was the whole idea!" her voice came through the gap as she gave a tug to the broom. "If I get your eyes, then you can't spy on me anymore! You dirty pervert!"
Miroku held the broom handle tightly, though, and Sango wasn't able to get it back.
"Now let's just talk this over!" he said, pulling the broom further into his side of the room.
"I'm not discussing anything with you! Letcher!" Sango's voice echoed through the gap, and she gave another sharp tug to the broom handle.
"You must understand, Sango! I'm only human, after all..." he pointed out, yanking the broom back toward his side of the wall.
"You're not human, you're disgusting! You perverted, low-lifed-..." Sango started, pulling the broom back to her side.
"Now, just hold on a minute! I am not a pervert or a low-li...well, maybe a pervert, but not a low-life! I'm quite a gentleman!"
"Hah! I find that a bit hard to believe!"
The broom handle was jerked from one side of the wall to the other with each new comment that was made.
"Then allow me to come over to your place and prove to you how much of a gentleman I am!"
"No way, Lecher! I'm not letting you within two feet of me!"
"Then let the broom go and step back from the wall. This is closer than two feet, you know..."
"Oh, shut up, Miroku!"
Unfortunately for Miroku, his grip had loosened as he concentrated on making wise-cracks, and Sango was able to pull the broom handle back though.
Before he could move, it was jabbed back through, getting him sharply between the legs.
The gym teacher doubled over in pain, collapsing onto the floor, moaning.
"Owwww...Sango...not there...I won't be able to bear your child..."
"Shut up, letcher! Or I'll...! Wait, did you say you'll bear my child?"
"I don't know, did I?" Miroku moaned, dragging himself to his feet "I meant you bear my child."
Sango paused a second before answering.
"Well, just to make sure that neither happens..."
Miroku just barely managed to dodge another blow between the legs.
"Alright! Alright!" he called, "I give up! I'm leaving!"
"Don't you even! Patch up this hole first!"
"But Sango..."
Miroku had to dodge another shot from the broom handle.
"Alright! I'll patch it!"
He walked over to a nearby closet and dug out the plaster, muttering to himself as he did.
"I didn't think that falling for feisty women could be this dangerous..."
Miroku balanced on the staircase in his apartment. His new rat-hole was up by the ceiling of Kagome's living room, out of reach of the two Miko scout troop leaders and Kohaku.
He smiled to himself as Sango and Kagome glared up at him, seemingly at a loss. They had tried to stand on a chair and reach the rat-hole, but ended up a foot short, and now it seemed that they didn't have any more ideas.
CLACK.
Miroku perked as a noise sounded from the wall beside his head.
"What...was...?" he asked himself quietly.
He noticed, with a sinking feeling, that Kagome and Sango were wearing triumphant grins on their faces. Peering closer, he tried to make out what it was.
It was only as he leaned to the side, balancing on the very edge of the step, that he realized that somehow, they had gotten a ladder.
His vision was blocked by the barrel of a water gun, and a stream of water hit him in the eye.
With a yelp, Miroku overbalanced and fell down the stairs backwards.
Sango's eyes darted to the side as Kohaku came through the door, trying to be quiet while carrying the 7-foot ladder that he had borrowed from their neighbors.
Her brother set it up against the wall by the hole, and began to climb, armed with his water-pistol.
Upon reaching the top, Kohaku pointed the gun through the rat-hole and pulled the trigger. A cry was heard from next door, followed by a racket.
THUMP! THUMP! THUD! BAM! CRASH!
Sango glanced at Kagome as silence was once again heard from the apartment next door.
"Should I probably go next door and see if he's still alive?"
Kagome chuckled.
"I suppose so."
"Hello? Anyone home, and still alive?"
"Sango!" the gym teacher cried from the ground with a smile, "I knew you'd come to your senses and figure out that you couldn't stand to be without me!"
"No," she corrected, reaching out a hand to him, "I'm just making sure that we don't get framed for the murder of a lecherous gym-teacher who lives one apartment over."
She helped him to his feet.
"Well, fortunately for both of us, I didn't get hurt too badly in my little...mishap." he smiled, gingerly rubbing a lump that was beginning to form on the top of his head. "You wanna stay for dinner?"
"No. Like I said, I'm checking to make sure you're still alive. And now, I'll be leaving."
The pretty young woman turned and began heading toward the door, when she noticed something sitting on the ground.
Miroku inadvertently began to sweat.
"What do we have here?" she asked wickedly, bending to pick the object up.
It was Miroku's drill.
"I believe that I'll just confiscate this." she smiled, "To prevent any further 'mishaps'. Good bye, Miroku."
The gym teacher watched as she left, then slumped back into the couch.
Now what?
He would get them back.
Somehow...
"Hey!" Miroku said, sitting bolt upright.
He had a saw in the storage shed...
Sango stood at the stove, attending to the various pots for Kagome while she ran to the store for a few ingredients that she had forgotten.
The sound of soft footsteps behind her was enough to tell the former cop of her brother's approach.
Turning sharply, she caught Kohaku across the knuckles with the wooden spoon she held as he tried to snatch some food.
"Oh no you don't! That's for dinner! You can wait till' then!"
"Aw, but I'm hungry now!" he protested, rubbing his hand.
"Don't you have homework?" Sango asked, stirring another pot.
"Yes, but my stomach is growling so loud that I can't concentrate..."
"Go. Now." Sango ordered, using the spoon to point the way, then quickly taking it back as it began to drip.
With grumbled protests, her brother sulkily returned to the other room.
Sango turned back to the stove.
"And don't let me catch you in this kitchen again! Next time I'll hit you with the rolling pin!"
As she tended to one pot, though, another began to boil over.
Quickly turning the heat down, she grabbed the lid with a pot holder and lifted it from the sizzling base.
The bubbles quickly died down, and she replaced the lid.
Miss Kagome should be back any second now.
Creak...creak...creak...
Sango rolled her eyes.
If anything, Kohaku was louder this time than the last.
Grabbing the rolling pin, she spun around to face her brother, bringing the wooden cylinder down sharply, prepared to stop it an inch or two above his head.
"I warned you, Kohaku...!"
THUNK!
Sango blinked for a second in surprise.
Her rolling pin had hit something far higher than Kohaku's head should have been. Looking down at the floor, she was surprised to see...
"Miroku?!"
Sure enough, the gym teacher lay sprawled across the floor, out cold.
The front door slammed closed a second later and Sango could hear the jingle of keys as Kagome came inside.
"Hey, Sango! I'm ba-..." Kagome stopped mid-sentence and stared, speechless, at the sight before her.
"What did-...How did he-...?!"
Sango looked up, and let out a strangled cry.
The pantry door was open, and there was a door-sized hole sawed through the back wall, leading between their two apartments.
"Miroku! If you weren't already dead, I'd kill you!" Kagome yelled at the limp gym teacher.
Kohaku came running in from the other room, skidding to a stop at the doorway with his arms flailing in an attempt to retain his balance as he remembered his sister's threat about not coming in the kitchen again.
"What's going on? Is that Miroku?"
Sango grabbed one of the gym teacher's arms and began dragging him back to his own side of the wall.
"We really need to do something about him, Kagome." she muttered as the teacher set down the groceries and picked up Miroku's other arm.
The two of them tossed the gym teacher back into his own apartment.
"I need to have this fixed by tonight!" Kagome moaned, looking at the chunk of her pantry wall that lay on the floor. "Inuyasha is coming over to dinner tomorrow night..."
Sango also looked down at the door, contemplating the options.
I'll bet a certain 'rat' has some nails of some sort stashed away with his various other hole-drilling power tools." she hinted.
Kagome nodded.
"Yeah, we'll have to have him fix it properly later. For now, let's just get it back up. Come on Sango. Kohaku, watch those pots!"
Kohaku saluted and eagerly ran over to the stove.
Sango caught her brother by the ear.
"You see Miroku?" she asked him threateningly, "That's what's in store for you if I find out you've been snacking."
One look at the growing mountain on the top of the gym teacher's head was enough to make Kohaku nod.
He did not want to face the wrath of his sister, especially when she was armed with a rolling pin.
Miroku sat up groggily.
What had happened?
He had just gone into Sango and Kagome's apartment, when...
Miroku recalled hearing Sango say something and turn quickly; he just couldn't remember what she said.
The gym teacher rubbed the back of his head and instantly regretted doing so. He had a lump the size of a small anthill atop his skull.
Then it all came back to him.
"Why, Sango? Why a rolling pin?" he moaned, his hands hovering over his pained head.
Ice. He needed ice.
Getting to his feet, Miroku turned around.
The section of the wall that he had cut out had been nailed back up, but that wasn't all.
'Death to lecher' was painted in red dripping letters across it.
He chuckled.
He'd really messed up this time.
Next time, though, he wouldn't be so misfortunate.
They wouldn't catch him.
"Hey, Kagome! You've got a hole in your wall!" the half-demon called, peering into the offending gap.
There was a flurry of movement inside. "And I think there's something living in it!" he added, straightening up.
"Oh, yes." Kagome called from the kitchen. "We've got a rat. A BIG rat. It's always making holes in the wall. We'll have to patch that later, huh Sango."
"Yeah." The ex-police woman agreed. Inuyasha noticed that the two of them shared a glance, but didn't think much of it.
He turned as Kagome came in the room.
"Why not just get rid of the rat?" he asked.
"We've tried." Sango explained, setting the table. "We haven't managed to keep it away, though. Nothing seems to work."
Inuyasha smirked.
"Let me try."
Before either of the girls could say anything, he was over by the wall, peering into the hole.
"Um...Inuyasha..." Kagome started. "When we say 'rat', we aren't referring to your normal house rat..."
"Nothing I can't handle." he muttered. "Oh, hang on a sec! Keep quiet!" Inuyasha hissed as his eyes detected movement from the darkness.
As soon as he was sure that the rat was in the tunnel, he leaned away from the hole, reared his fist back, and slammed it with all of his might into that portion of the wall, up to his elbow.
There was a strangled cry from the other side of the wall as his fist connected with flesh.
"Wh...what kind of a rat was that?" he asked, pulling his arm back.
"A very large one...with a black eye." Sango muttered, shaking her head. Inuyasha cocked his head.
"What?"
"Don't worry about it Inuyasha." Kagome said, also shaking her head. "Let's eat. I'll patch the wall later."
Kagome grabbed her bag from the back seat and locked the car, joining Sango on the sidewalk.
The two of them began walking toward the school as Inuyasha, whose car had just skidded into a 'handicapped only' parking spot nearby, got out and ran to catch up with them.
Kagome groaned at his blatant disobediance.
"I suppose he could qualify as mental handicap." Sango suggested.
The two of them chuckled as the half-demon stopped just behind them.
"What? What are you laughing about? Tell me!" Inuyasha said, poking his head inquisitively between them.
"Never mind, Inuyasha. You wouldn't think it was funny."
Before the half-demon could argue the point any farther, he noticed Miroku getting out of his car just a few parking spots farther ahead.
"Hey, Miroku!" he called.
Kagome looked the gym teacher over.
His head seemed to have returned to its normal shape for the most part, but one of his eyes was entirely rimmed in black.
She had to suppress an evil snicker.
"Hey Miroku, what happened to your eye?"
"Don't talk to me, Inuyasha." the gym teacher growled.
"What did I do?" the half-demon asked, following behind Miroku as he began walking toward the school building.
Sango and Kagome, walking behind them, just giggled.
Kagome walked back into the other room, holding a serving plate.
Inuyasha had come over again tonight, to help her grade papers, and had decided to stay for dinner.
But he wasn't the only visitor.
"Make sure you layer on enough of that plaster, Miroku." Sango was lecturing the gym teacher, "We don't want it falling out."
"I know, I know..."
Kagome smiled.
With a little threatening from her, Miroku had decided that it was in his best interest to patch the wall for them.
"What's that you're doing anyway, Miroku?" the half-demon asked.
"Oh, Miroku kindly volunteered to patch up the newest rat hole in our wall," Kagome smiled as he sat down.
Inuyasha took the plate from her, setting it on the table and serving himself a large portion of the food it contained.
"I think you should just set a trap for it, myself." he said, turning to scoot her chair out from the table for her as she sat down.
"Absolutely not!" Miroku called over his shoulder from the other room. Sango and Kagome laughed.
Sango picked up a pile of folded laundry from the hamper, and headed back to her room. Since the Inuyasha incident, Miroku hadn't tried to drill any more rat holes in their wall. Kagome said that maybe he'd learned, but Sango was suspicious.
Once a lecher, always a lecher. And Miroku was no exception.
As she opened one of the drawers of her dresser to put the clothing away, she was surprised to hear a strange scraping noise.
Pulling some of the clothing out of the way, she found what looked to be a coat hanger hook lying in her drawer. But that wasn't all.
It was moving.
Someone was at the other end.
As she watched, it hooked a pair of her panties and pulled them toward the back of her drawer.
Sure enough, there was a hole in the back of her dresser, with a matching hole in the wall, through which her panties vanished.
"Miroku..." she snarled.
The ex-cop stalked over to the next apartment and tried the door handle.
It was unlocked. Miroku hadn't been expecting to get caught.
The gym teacher was kneeling on the floor, holding said pair of panties in one hand, while he held the coat hanger in the other, fishing for more.
"Dead!" she snapped, stalking over, "Do you hear me Miroku?! D-E-A-D KILLED! And don't expect me to show ANY mercy!"
The gym teacher was so taken aback that he couldn't do much more than stare at her in shock as she stood before him.
Sango grabbed him by his collar and hefted him up to almost eye level, rearing back a fist.
"So help me, I swear...!" she started.
"Alright! Alright! I yield!" Miroku said pathetically, his hands in front of his face. Sango paused.
"I promise not to drill any more holes in your wall!"
Sango hesitated for a second, then dropped the gym teacher on the ground, dusting off her hands.
"Fine. You'd better not be lying."
Her eyes caught sight of something in a bag on the bed, and sure enough, it was full of her unmentionables.
"And I'll be taking these back, too."
Sango grabbed the bag of stolen items and turned on her heel, storming out of Miroku's house.
Miroku sat where he had been dropped for a minute.
Well, maybe he would stop. It really didn't seem to be getting him anywhere but in trouble anyway.
With a sigh he stood, walking over to the nearest trash can and throwing out the coat hanger.
Miroku closed the door behind him with as little energy as possible.
It had been a long day at work, and he was exhausted.
Dropping everything that he was carrying on the coffee table, he made his way into his bedroom.
The button-down shirt that he wore was beyond uncomfortable.
Looking for a comfortable pair of clothes, he decided on a plain T-shirt and a pair of jeans.
Dumping the change of clothing on the bed, the gym teacher unbuttoned the shirt and slipped it off his shoulders.
An appreciative whistle caused him to turn.
There, bored in his wall, was a rat hole.
Miroku walked over and pressed his face to the gap.
His gaze met that of a lovely brown eye, and Miroku smiled.
"Hi, Sango."
THE END.
There! I told you all that I'd get another one up sometime soon!
Now don't expect to hear from me for the next 2 years...KIDDING!
I've been working on this one for a while, and it makes me almost as happy as Fanfiction Massacre did! (By the way, if you want a good laugh, that's the one to read!)
So thanks again for supporting, comments are always welcome, and I hope to have my next one up soon! (If I ever stop procrastinating and just finish it...)
Now if you'll excuse me, I have an episode of Library Wars to catch up on.
C-ya! ///