Kagome woke up the morning of the twenty-third of December with Christmas songs on her radio and Jingle Bells running through her head. It repeated itself over and over, speeding up each time, until all she could hear in her head was a rather muddled rendition of the song that sounded as though it was sung by gerbils. However, she felt that nothing could spoil her mood, or rather, she refused to let anything spoil her mood. She had the day all planned out in her head and had been planning this very day since well before school even began after summer holidays. She literally bounced out of bed and was downstairs singing carols before the rest of the household had even managed to drag themselves out of bed.
Finally, Souta came stomping down the stairs, threw a pillow at his older sister and stomped back upstairs.
"Get in the bloody Christmas spirit later!!!!!!!!!!!!" he screamed. "Like at nine o'clock, not five bloody thirty!!!"
"Souta," Mrs. Higurashi yawned, coming down the stairs, "watch your mouth, and don't yell like that, you'll wake the whole neighbourhood up."
"But Mom," he whined, "Kagome started it."
"I did not," Kagome snapped, her good mood disappearing.
"Kagome, please don't sing so loud. Some of us are trying to sleep."
"Yes, mom," Kagome replied, trying hard to get her Christmas cheer back.
"Now that that's all settled, I'm going back to bed," Kagome's mom said, smiling and turning around, soon vanishing into her bedroom.
Souta glared at his sister and trudged back upstairs.
Kagome stood still for a moment, then shrugged and went back to singing – quietly this time.
By seven thirty, the rest of the household was up and sluggishly preparing breakfast. Kagome had already finished breakfast three times and was in the midst of preparing a bag full of Christmas decorations to take to the feudal era to decorate Kaede's hut. Souta was still sending her glares as punishment for the five thirty episode, which had really happened at five thirty-seven, as Kagome wanted to point out, but refrained for fear of another shouting match.
Grandpa was rather cheery as well, and was currently giving Souta a lecture on the history of the shrine – the fifteenth in the past three days. Souta was not paying attention, as usual, and Kagome's mother was busy making sure Kagome didn't take too much or too little. In other words, it was a normal morning and nothing was out of the ordinary so far. Kagome hoped it would stay that way, as she was pretty sure a demon would succeed in ruining her mood, whereas her brother couldn't.
By eight thirty-two, on the dot, Kagome was pulling on her boots and coat and waving goodbye to her family as she set off for the feudal era again.
As Kagome disappeared into the well house, her mother shook her head. "That girl," she said to herself, "she's always in a rush."
---
Kagome bounded into the well and would have leaped joyously out, had her backpack not been too heavy. Instead, she let Inuyasha haul her out and unceremoniously drop her into a mound of snow. She didn't let that spoil her mood, however, and glomped Inuyasha as soon as she got out of the snow mound. He growled back and climbed into a tree, watching her warily as she picked up Shippo and gave him an overly affectionate hug that nearly crushed the little fox demon.
"Wow, Kagome," Shippo chirped, squirming out of her embrace, "you're in a really good mood today."
"I am," Kagome agreed, spinning around.
"Might I ask why?" Sango asked as she came out of the trees, followed closely by Miroku.
"Why, it's Christmas tomorrow!" Kagome exclaimed, giving the demon exterminator a hug.
"Can I have a hug too, Kagome?" Miroku grinned hopefully.
"No."
"Awww."
"What's Kir-ist-mas?" Shippo frowned in concentration as he tried to pronounce the word.
"It's a holiday and you give presents and Santa comes," Kagome told him, running to her bag and pulling out several pointed red hats that were trimmed in white. She glared at Inuyasha for a moment when he refused to come out of the tree. Then she smiled. "SIT." Inuyasha decided rather hastily to come down from the tree – not that he had much of an option.
"San-ta?" Miroku asked when Kagome's attention wandered back his way.
"Oh, never mind," Kagome said, shaking her head and pushing a hat onto each person's head. Inuyasha immediately snatched it off his head, looked at it suspiciously for a moment and then dropped it disinterestedly, wandering over to Kagome's backpack.
The half-demon rooted through the bag for several minutes while Kagome's attention was turned to getting Inuyasha's fallen hat clean. Unfortunately, the diversion was only temporary and Kagome spun around, hurriedly planting Inuyasha facedown in the snow with the command of 'Sit', just in time to save a small red ornament from being tossed aside.
"What are these?" Shippo asked, picking up a blue bobble and gazing at his warped reflection in the side. "Ooh, shiny," he crooned, mesmerized by the lights reflecting off the opalescent paint.
"Those are Christmas tree ornaments," Kagome said proudly, plucking the ball out of the little fox's hands and picking up her backpack carefully.
"Why do you need a tree for the bloody holiday if you've already got hats and Panta… or whatever that is?" Inuyasha asked skeptically, spitting out snow.
"It's SANTA, and the tree's a tradition," Kagome replied.
"Pretty dumb tradition if you ask me," Inuyasha grumbled, pushing himself up onto his feet.
"Inuyasha," Kagome said in a sweet, yet rather sinister tone.
He gulped. "Yes, Kagome?"
"SIT!"
And for the third time in the past ten minutes, Inuyasha felt the ground come up to whap him in the face with cold, wet snow.
---
Several hours later, all the difficulties had been sorted out as to what Christmas was and why they needed to decorate for it. Kagome had managed to keep her cool with everyone, randomly taking out stress on Inuyasha by taking advantage of the prayer beads around his neck. So finally, Kaede's hut, as well as a small tree outside, was decorated with brightly coloured bobbles and holly garlands. It was all topped off with the mistletoe hanging above the door. Kagome struggled with whether to tell them what it was for and risk Miroku's advances, or not. However, she had to give in when Inuyasha kept bugging her, telling her that it was dumb to have a little plant hanging in the doorway if it had no use whatsoever.
---
It had been a mistake, she thought afterward as she showed Shippo how to make snow angels, watching the door out of the corner of her eye. Miroku had been standing there, leaning nonchalantly against the doorframe ever since the fatal fact had parted with Kagome's lips.
"Of course I shouldn't have told that lecher," Kagome muttered to herself, sighing inwardly, mentally hitting herself over the head with a manga book. However, before she could proverbially injure herself, Shippo's voice bored into her skull and distracted her.
"Kagome! Kagome!" he squeaked, tugging on her sleeve and pointing to the ground.
"Huh?" Kagome looked around, dazed. "Oh," she smiled and examined his snow angel. It was pockmarked with tiny paw prints where he had tried – unsuccessfully – to get up the first few times. Other than that, it was a good snow angel. She told the little fox so and he beamed back and set about making another one.
"MIROKU!" a disgusted growl echoed around the hut, followed by a nervous laugh.
Kagome shook her head and walked toward the hut to better see what Miroku had done this time. She was sure it wasn't good and felt she could probably guess correctly what had happened. Because of her guess, she was rather worried about the monk, as the growl had sounded distinctly like Inuyasha.As soon as the inside of the doorframe of the hut came into view, Kagome burst out laughing and couldn't, for the life of her, figure out how to stop.
Miroku stood backed up against the doorframe, sweat pouring down his face. His hands were up in a pathetic makeshift defense against the fully transformed Tessaiga, which Inuyasha had belligerently presented at nose.
As soon as Inuyasha saw Kagome, he began an attempt to complain to her.
"He tried to kiss me!" the half-demon screamed, brandishing his sword in dangerously close proximity to Miroku's face. "I thought the b-"
Kagome silently held up a hand to cut him off, taking a deep breath in an endeavor to stop the uncontrollable giggles – and abruptly burst out laughing once more.
"Wh-" Inuyasha gave her a 'how-dare-you-admonish-me-vermin?' look (see Demon Diary volume 1). "Just what is so funny, Kagome?"
"You- he-" Kagome just barely managed to gasp the words out between shrieks of laughter, which had come to the brink of being guffaws.
Inuyasha shook his head and snorted angrily, sheathing his sword. He stalked away, scowling a dark warning at Miroku, who returned the glare with a feeble grin, and collapsed against the doorframe.
"You know," Kagome said, finally able to catch her breath and keep it, when Inuyasha was out of sight, "I always knew you were a womanizer, Miroku, but men too? I think you owe me an explanation."
Miroku turned red and looked decidedly uncomfortable. "I thought he was someone else…?" he offered lamely.
"Like who?" Kagome asked slyly, although she was already quite sure who.
"No one," the monk's voice rose a half an octave.
"Well, be more careful next time," Kagome told him, winking over her shoulder as she walked away in search of Inuyasha.
A cold sweat broke out on Miroku's forehead. She knows…
---
Later that day, Kagome had vanished to her own time for something or other, Miroku had resumed his post at the door, and Inuyasha was still busy nursing his wounded pride. Shippo was quite content to give Sango a headache by asking her, without any noticeable pause for air intake, "Where's Kagome? Where's Kagome? Where's Kagome?" and so on and so forth.
Miroku was bored and had gone into some form of trance in an attempt to ignore the doorframe that insisted on incessantly digging into his spine. Suddenly, a shadow flicked across his vision and he realized that a person was preparing to enter the hut. And to enter the hut, as he had calculated, that person would have to cross under the mistletoe. All the warning bells in his head and the reminders of the episode with Inuyasha tried their best, but were forced to flee with Miroku's blind hope to catch Sango unawares in hot pursuit.
He lazily placed his hand on the doorframe opposite the rest of him, barring the way to the inside of the hut.
"If you want to pass," he said, still not paying any useful attention to who stood waiting to get it, "you'll have to pay the toll."
"Miroku, Miroku, Miroku," the person replied, sighing and pushing his arm down, "what shall we do with ye? Do I have to put prayer beads around your neck too, to stop ye from your silly games?"
Miroku groaned inwardly and mentally slapped himself. Bad Miroku. BAD Miroku. Pay attention or you'll end up ACTUALLY kissing Inuyasha or Kaede.
Finally, his mental engine turned on again and he was able to clearly see Kaede as she passed him on her way into the hut.
"My apologies, Lady Kaede," he grinned sheepishly, trying to keep the tears of frustration and disappointment away.
"Ye had better watch yourself, monk, or ye will get yourself into trouble."
He gulped, "Yes ma'am."
"Maybe you should just place the prayer beads on him. It might help the rest of us sleep soundly at night, knowing he's not roaming who knows where doing who knows what," Sango remarked dryly, rounding the corner. Shippo still happened to be clinging to her and still chanting his little chorus of "Where's Kagome?"
"Sango!" It always astounded Sango how quickly the regular Miroku took over around a beautiful woman, even if the situation was screaming 'DANGER'. "How very wonderful it is to see you again!"
"Stuff it, Miroku. Just once, say nothing."
Miroku nodded meekly and an awkward silence loomed over them all.
---
When Kagome re-entered the feudal era, she was met by a number of things that made her return rather hellish and very nearly catastrophic. First, a little ball of fur, which, upon further scrutiny, proved to be Shippo, flew out of the forest and attached itself to her like a burr. Then, Inuyasha appeared and began to complain to Kagome about random issues that had absolutely nothing at all to do with that day. Finally, when they reached Kaede's hut, Kagome was so exasperated that, without thinking a whole lot about it, she turned around and yelled "SIT!" at the grumbling half-demon.
Miroku, pretending to be completely oblivious as to Inuyasha's plight, was the one who, thankfully, changed the subject.
"What's that thing?" he asked, pointing to Kagome's hand. It was clasping the handle of small, silver, battery powered CD player, all but forgotten by Kagome as she had tried (and almost failed) to keep her sanity all in one piece.
"Oh, this?" she asked, holding it up. A hush immediately fell over the group and they all stood still, mesmerized by the little silver box.
Miroku found his courage first and tiptoed forward. Eyes wide, he whispered, "Can I touch it?". Without waiting for a reply, his finger ventured forward and depressed one of the black plastic buttons on the surface. As soon as the player engaged, making a clicking noise, Miroku began to back away. At the first loud note of music, he leapt away, running, quite by accident, into Inuyasha.
SHING
Miroku curled up, whimpering, on the ground, cringing away from the point of Tessaiga. The rest of the audience didn't seem to care too much about the poor monk, as they were still trying to figure out what exactly the Demon of the Silver Box was.
Kagome giggled and pushed another button. The music stopped and Inuyasha angrily re-sheathed his sword.
"Keep chasing after girls, Miroku," he growled, glaring down at the monk, "it suits you better."
Sango, sensing a disturbance in the force, pulled her wits together and changed the subject. "So, what is that, anyway?"
That brought everyone's attention away from Inuyasha's somewhat ill-informed comment. Kagome was thankful.
"It's a CD player," she told them. "It can play music."
"I've never heard of a seedy pliers before. Is it a demon?" Inuyasha cracked his knuckles.
"It's not a demon, it's a machine. It's from my era," Kagome replied, tapping the CD player impatiently.
Inuyasha still looked, and felt, rather skeptical, but followed Kagome into Kaede's hut nevertheless, where she said she'd give a demonstration of the powers of the mystical Silver Box.
Kagome finally got everyone seated on the floor and apologized profusely to Inuyasha. (Kagome: Shippo, please sit down. Inuyasha: Wham …Kagome…)
"Feh," he replied, glaring at her warily from the corner.
"Anyway," Kagome sighed and set the CD player down in front of her captivated audience, "here goes nothing." She pressed play and sat back with a grin as a children's choir began their rendition of Up on the Housetop. She laughed quietly as everyone else's eyes, including the skeptic, Inuyasha's, widened in unison.
"Okay, you guys," she said, attempting to jerk them out of reverie, "I have a few things to do back in my own time, so I'll leave this with you for now. Touch NOT the machine."
Kagome stood up and stretched, unwittingly pushing a small button on the side of the CD player…
She walked out of the hut, tailed by Inuyasha and Kirara, who saw her off as she went down the well, then wandered away to their own pursuits. Inuyasha's goal for the afternoon was, in general, to stay as far away from Miroku as possible. Kirara, on the other hand, decided to find Sango and help her do whatever she was doing.
---
The CD player's music was so loud that it reached the ears of everyone who was in a five mile radius or so. At least, that's what it seemed like to those who were within one mile of it. The high pitched voices of the children particularly bugged Inuyasha, who had taken up refuge on the outskirts of the forest. It had, in fact, been irritating him for the past two hours. That same damned song had been playing for the past two damned hours. He didn't like that song to begin with.
Finally, he got so fed up with it that he marched right past Miroku, who was actually paying attention (he had resumed his post at the door) and sidestepped out of the way, into the hut. There, Inuyasha found Shippo singing along with the music at the top of his squeaky little lungs.
"Can't you shut that off?" the half-demon yelled pissily at the little fox.
"Why don't you just go to Kagome's time if you don't like it?" Shippo retorted.
"Because I don't want to!"
"Well, I'm not going to shut it off! So there!"
"Well, I'm bigger than you! So THERE!"
Inuyasha crossed the room, seized the CD player from Shippo's protective grasp, and began to turn it over and over, looking for an off button. Of course, he was searching for a rectangle that said "SHUT UP" or "BE QUIET", so his success was doomed from the start. When he couldn't find the button, he began to shake it furiously, becoming alarmed and dropping it when the song began to skip and give the singers an acute case of the hiccups. By that time, he was so agitated that, without thinking at all, he flexed his claws.
"IRON REAVER!"
Just then, Kagome flew in the door, sending Miroku flying. Alas, she was too late and the CD player was no more.
"Inuyasha."
"The half-demon felt a chill shoot up his spine and he turned slowly to see sparks almost literally flying from Kagome's eyes.
"Kagome?" he squeaked, his voice several octaves higher that normal.
"OSUWARI!!!!!" The forest shook as Inuyasha hit the ground with a bone-shattering thud.
"Kagome, please forgive Inuyasha," Sango pleaded later as Kagome sat fuming by the well. "You know he has anger management issues, and you don't know how irritating it is to have you two refusing to speak with one another."
"I know," Kagome sighed, a woman defeated, "but I just wish he'd apologize in person once in a while."
"Well, as long as you and I both live, that's not going to happen."
Kagome nodded silently, and Sango knew that the conversation had drawn to a close. The demon exterminator got up and wandered off to console Shippo, who was busy feeling hard done by in Kaede's hut.
Inuyasha watched Kagome from his hiding place in the bushes and felt bad. He'd never admit that, of course, but it was the truth, it really was. He didn't know how to make it up to her either, so wisely decided to stay out of her way until he came up with something.
---
Sango hadn't made it into the hut. Yet. She was, in fact, pondering a solution to the problem of Miroku being in the doorway. She didn't want to have to knock him out, but it currently seemed like the only solution. As she pondered, Kaede walked into the hut with no resistance from Miroku. Then, Kaede walked out of the hut, once again, with no flicker of movement from the monk standing sentinel under the mistletoe.
Either, he's asleep, or he's actually paying attention for once, Sango thought, watching Miroku closely. He didn't seem to be cognizant, or even awake, for that matter. She finally decided to brave it and, summoning all her courage, walked through the door. However, she didn't get far past Miroku. His arm was around her waist in a fraction of a second. She tried in vain to fight back, but he was simply too quick. He lifted her chin with his free hand and kissed her soundly.
When he released her, she made an involuntary noise of outrage, but the rest of her stood in shock for the next few minutes. No matter how hard she thought, she couldn't decide exactly what she thought. She just couldn't decide what the flutter in her heart had been when he'd kissed her. Despite the past few months of slapping Miroku every time he so much as hinted at something, she'd almost enjoyed it. Unfortunately, by the time she had decided to slap him just for the hell of it, the monk had made his escape, leaving Sango alone in the doorway. She let a miniscule smile escape her tight emotional security, but it soon grew to a foolish grin and wound up with her giggling furiously and bright red to boot.
"Yuck," said Shippo from inside the hut. And the moment was ruined.
---
Inuyasha shuffled dejectedly toward Kaede's hut, frowning in puzzlement as first Miroku ran past, grinning from ear to ear, and then Sango wandered dazedly away from the hut, glowing crimson and giggling helplessly. This perplexing new development just piled on top of his already great confusion, therefore obscuring his inner thoughts beyond any hope whatsoever of clarity.
He was already sure that Kagome would never forgive him and that just screwed up his entire being. Maybe he should apologize… "NO!" all his scruples protested very loudly. He sighed aloud and trudged half-heartedly toward the hut, the perfect picture of a half-demon that was irretrievably down in the dumps.
Kagome was walking very slowly toward Kaede's hut. When she saw Inuyasha headed the same way, she almost turned around and headed somewhere else. Then something clicked inside, an almost audible little click that made her smile, made her break into a jog that carried her at just the right speed to meet Inuyasha in the doorway.
The two of them stood there, staring at each other, an awkward silence and thick tension between them. Inuyasha looked terribly uncomfortable. As soon as Kagome caught her breath, she smiled and looked up. She pointed up at the little bundle of leaves overhead. Inuyasha's eyes followed her finger and he looked back at her inquisitively.
Kagome's smile widened to a grin. "Look, mistletoe," she said simply.
Realization dawned on Inuyasha's face and he flushed, his eyes darting here and there, looking for an escape route.
Kagome giggled at the look on his face, then stood on her tiptoes to kiss him softly on the cheek.
He flushed bright red and looked down at her in awestruck silence. Their gazes met and they stared at one another for what must have been forever.
I forgive you, Kagome mouthed, winking and smiling warmly at him.
A smile spread across Inuyasha's face and he instinctively wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close to him.
"Merry Christmas, Inuyasha," Kagome mumbled into his shirt.
---
"Yuck," Shippo's disgusted voice drifted out of the hut.
P.S. for you:
Naraku: sidles up to Kikyo Hey, look! Mistletoe! holds a piece of mistletoe above their heads
Kikyo: F you Naraku. blasts him Go to Hell.
Naraku: Okay! Meet you there!
Kikyo: Damn. I'm stuck with him now, aren't I?
Destiny Goddess: Yup! >
Note from the author::
Destiny Goddess likes this pairing (Kikyo/Naraku). They deserve each other.
She would like to point out that Kagome's lapse into Japanese earlier was entirely intentional, as Destiny Goddess tends to do the same from time to time.
And for those of you who don't know, Osuwari means SIT