Chapter Three
A spider skittered across the dressing room floor when Inuyasha rushed in, and Jakotsu was already chasing after it with a rolled up magazine. Miroku started to shout, adding to the chaos, until Bankotsu — the club owner — stepped into the room, stomping the spider as he went. The whole room breathed a sigh of relief.
"Now what's the problem?" Bankotsu grumbled. Completely oblivious to the solution he had just given whilst walking into the room.
"Nothing brother, don't worry about it." Jakotsu amended, before yelling at the girls to return to work. Inuyasha and Miroku walked over to Kagome, whom of which was leaning against her dressing room table, the mirror lights giving a shine to her face.
"Who screamed?" Miroku asked.
"It was Sango, she's deathly afraid of spiders."
"It didn't sound like her though."
"Well have you ever heard her scream?" Kagome snapped back at him —eyes unmoving from the empty stare she held into the ground at her feet— her usually calm facade unraveling itself in front of their eyes.
"I suppose not.." Miroku mumbled, more to himself than anyone around him.
"Now what are we paying you boys for, if you're just doing what any customer does, staring at our Miko like that?" Jakostu smiled and —rigging his arms around the boys — strolled them out of the dressing room. Inuyasha looked back at Kagome as he was carted out of the room, just quick enough to see the look of fear flit across her face.
-IY-
Kagome breathed a sign of relief when the boys were gone. She walked over to Sango, who had locked herself into the nearest closet. "It's gone." She whispered, as she slowly opened the door. Sango was curled up in the corner, her arms wrapped around her legs, and her tears leaving streaks across her face.
Kagome crawled in next to her, shutting the door behind her. She could clearly hear the whispers of the other girls in the room, saying how it was 'just a spider', how Sango was 'overreacting', etcetera. As Kagome sat down next to her long friend — gripping her hand, which was trembling — she remembered. It was never just spiders to Sango. It was a punishment. Kagome rested her head on Sango's paralyzed shoulder. It would always be.
"Kagome?" Sango whispered.
"Yeah?"
"Will you sing our lullaby for me?"
"Always."
And she whispered the words that held them up for so long. The tune almost lost under the yelling of Jakostu, and the rustling of the girls outside of the closet.
The situation was utterly new, yet almost familiar.
-IY-
Customers were flowing into the club.
Inuyasha leaned against the bar from the inside. His arms were crossed over one another and his pen was scratching on a fluorescent notepad. His attention was shifted, half on the resolved situation in the dressing room, and half on the flooding of orders coming from the patron in front of him.
Miroku was doing about the same on the other end of the isle.
The bass pumped in Inuyasha's sensitive ears, which were cleverly concealed under a baseball cap with some indiscernible words on the front from which he snatched back at Kagome's apartment.
In more basic terms, it was controlled chaos. Until she started dancing.
-IY-
After the incident in the dressing room that night, much of what happened next became daily routine. Aside from the haphazard days which filled most of their week — full of rehearsals and undesirable contact with the general public— much of it was mundane in a sense. However, when Inuyasha and Kagome regrouped at her place every night, it became a sort of solace for the hanyou. He didn't know what he felt for the girl with the ivory hair and blue eyes, but he knew it was comfort. She had become a comfort to him at the very least.
And that was something he's never had before.
-IY-
It was the end of a long night at the club a few months after the incident in the dressing room. Kagome was laying on the bar. Her knees up with her feet flat on the surface of the bar itself. Her arms cushioned her head, and her eyes were closed in a moment of peace. Sango sat beside her, on a barstool, only inches below Kagome's new 'bed'. She chatted up Miroku, who was behind the bar, while curling bits of Kagomes hair mindlessly around her fingers.
Inuyasha himself was walking back from cleaning the men's restroom with a scowl on his face, and a towel tied around his head. He threw the cleaning supplies into the cupboard under the bar, along with the towel. Alone with his presence came the putrid stench of un-wiped ass.
"Inuyasha could you please go stand over there?" Kagome mumbled as she turned her face away from him. "You're stinking up the whole bar."
"It already stunk in the first place. I'm just bringing another smell into the equation. It's not my fault you're odor blind to the rest of it."
Miroku snorted at Inuyasha. Which the hanyou replied to with a glare.
"The rest of it is a smell of home, you just smell like ass." Kagome whispered bringing her arms around her head.
"Well why don't you get the full experience!" Inuyasha gleamed, and proceeded to wrap his whole body around Kagome's.
"Inuyasha stop!"
"Oh you know you love it"
"What happened to the hanyou who was too afraid to get a bottle out of the fridge?!"
"He grew some balls."
"Did I mention I hate you?"
Their bickering filled the whole bar, while Kagome struggled against Inuyasha, although noticeably not to hard.
Sango and Miroku glanced back at one another with a knowing look.
"I give it another month" Miroku whispered to her.
Sango looked at Kagome and Inuyasha carefully. Her eyes taking in every detail of the actions in front of her before formulating a response.
"Maybe not." She replied before smiling sadly. "There's a lot he doesn't know, and even more she can't handle."
Miroku looked at her, and decided to not comment. Although the wheels in his head continued to turn while watching the scene in front of him. He put his arm around Sango and pulled her close, putting his nose in her hair and closing his eyes.
'I've known them for only a year.' He thought to himself. 'What happened to them? And how much do I not know about the people I care about?'
Sango, as if she could sense his thoughts, pulled away to look up at him.
"Miroku, this isn't…this is just Misery's Business. Leave it be."
If only he could. Oh Sango, if only he could've.
