"That was the most unbelievable idiot I've ever met in my entire life!" Inu-yasha raged, kicking the wall outside their garage.
"Oh, I don't know..." said Kagome, with that dreamy expression he had come to recognize since she started at the agency. She started to walk up towards the apartment. "I thought he seemed rather bright."
"Yeah, 'cos he showered you with compliments. How could you fall for that?"
"Oh, quit being a moron." Kagome laughed easily, pulling on one of his ears. "You just don't like him because he made you feel like you were five years old and really, really stupid. Well, it's not weird – anyone would feel like a baby after having their inmost thoughts attacked. He attacked you because you made him feel insecure, can't you see that? A cool, smart agent who comes waltzing in on his domain – you threatened him, and he reacted instinctively and defended himself by making you feel small."
Inu-yasha stared.
"Did you do psychology in school?"
"A little," laughed Kagome. "I'll try and teach you to block some thoughts if you want, so next time we go see Goshinki you won't have to worry quite as much about him reading your mind and making a fool out of you."
"As if I'd ever want to see that freak again," muttered Inu-yasha. Then something struck him. "Hey, what did you offer him, anyway?"
"Oh, nothing much," Kagome answered, opening the door to their apartment and stepping inside. She turned back towards him and suddenly smiled very devilishly. "Just a place in the agency."
"WHAT??!!!"
"Inu-yasha, please don't scream so much," said Sesshoumaru, coming out to them in the hallway. "It's most unpleasant."
"But she just went and offered a place in the agency to a bloody CRIMINAL, damn it!!! And she doesn't even have the authority!!!"
"Jesus, none of us has any authority," said Sesshoumaru calmly. "I'm sure that this person is a very reliable and worthy asset." He smiled at Kagome, who gave him her cutest and most innocent smile in return.
"Oh, I'm certain he will be," she said, casting a glance full of silent laughter at the furiously gaping Inu-yasha. Then she blinked, and looked around towards the kitchen. "Oh, you already ordered dinner, Sesshoumaru? Great timing!"
"Well, I thought you were going to call it a day and come in earlier, but then you disappeared again," Sesshoumaru answered, rubbing his neck in an almost embarrassed fashion. (What's up with him? thought Inu-yasha, feeling very puzzled.) "So I decided to use the time to try out something on my own..."
Kagome took a few steps into the kitchen and gasped when she saw the food that stood on the table – marinated chicken and pasta – and the empty saucepans and bowls that littered the sink.
"Wow, Sesshoumaru!" she exclaimed, her eyes sparkling. "Did you really cook this yourself? That's fantastic! It looks great!"
"It wasn't that hard, actually," said Sesshoumaru with an air of nonchalance. "I just followed the recipe. Although I don't think I'd want to do it every day..."
"Well, I can't wait to see if tastes as good as it looks!" smiled Kagome. "I'll just drop my stuff in my room, won't be a sec. OK?" The other two nodded and she hastened off. As soon as she was out of earshot Inu-yasha leaned towards his brother and muttered,
"Pedersen family, 'We cook if you pay us'?"
"One mention of the word "catering firm" and you're dead."
""Catering firm" is two words, actually."
"The threat still stands."
Inu-yasha sighed, shaking his head in disbelief. "Jeez, you really use every trick in the book. I mean, how low will you go to impress a girl?"
"All's fair in rivalry and war," smirked Sesshoumaru.
"What rivalry?" asked Inu-yasha fiercely, going slightly pink. "I don't recall ever saying I was even interested!"
"Well then..." Sesshoumaru stretched and looked at his brother with a half challenging, half triumphant smile. "That leaves the field free for me, doesn't it?"
"You are such a player. You twisted bastard."
"Ooh, you are so jealous."
The dinner was of course absolutely delicious. That Pedersen family really knows their stuff, thought Inu-yasha as he ate, all the while cursing his sad mistake of a brother. Kagome would not stop praising Sesshoumaru, who shrugged the compliments off casually but at the same time managed to convey an air of charming, modest pride and gratitude. He made Inu-yasha sick to the stomach.
Thankfully – Inu-yasha thought, he couldn't have stood another compliment to his brother without going insane – Kagome's phone rang just after they had finished eating.
"Sorry guys," she said, smiling apologetically. "Gotta take this. Think it's the old boss."
"That's quite alright," said Inu-yasha quickly. "Take as much time as you want. Since Sesshoumaru now knows how to cook food, he and I are going to practise cleaning up after us."
"Swine," said Sesshoumaru under his breath, making Inu-yasha grin victoriously. Kagome lifted the phone.
"Kagome Higurashi... what? Sota?? Why are you calling me now? No, that's not what I mean! Hell yeah, have I wanted to talk to you? Are you kidding? God, I can't believe you finally call me! What's up?" Sesshoumaru and Inu-yasha looked at each other. Kagome was bouncing up and down on her toes, laughing, and looked extremely happy over hearing from the person on the other end of the line. Boyfriend?! mouthed Sesshoumaru. Inu-yasha shrugged.
"What was that?" said Kagome, putting her free hand over the ear without the phone. "Bad connection, you know... say what? Yeah sure you can come and visit!"
"Oh goody," said a voice. All three in the room turned around instantly. A young man who looked a few years Kagome's junior was just climbing in through the kitchen window. He had a cell phone in his hand and was grinning like a Cheshire cat.
"SOTA!!!" Kagome flew across the room and threw herself in the man's arms. "I've missed you so much! God, why did I ever leave you..." She straightened up suddenly and looked at him critically, her brows furrowed. "You've lost weight, haven't you?"
"Jeez, you say that every time," sighed the man called Sota, then looked with interest at the other two occupants of the room. "Are these the two brothers you've written so much about?"
"Yeah, this is Sesshoumaru, and Inu-yasha." Kagome pointed to them in turn. "And guys, this is Sota. My dear, beloved – " Sesshoumaru sighed, signing defeat "– little brother." Sesshoumaru perked up again.
"Well, that's excellent!" he said, smiling charmingly at the man. "Let's go into the living room, shall we? I'm sure you have a lot to tell your sister." There was a small emphasis on the last word, but Inu-yasha didn't think anyone other than him noticed. They followed Sesshoumaru's advice and sat down together in the living room, Inu-yasha wondering a little about what the hell he was supposed to be doing there.
"I'm sure you have lost weight," said Kagome worriedly as she took a seat next to Sota in the large sofa. "You look thin."
"Gods, it's enough with mom bothering me, don't you start too," said Sota, but he was smiling.
"Well, it's important! You gotta eat, how many times will I have to tell you that? Do you have enough money? Do you get enough jobs?"
"I get by." Sota shrugged. "Plenty of stuff last week. Had a few jobs for the police the week before though, that really sucks. They don't pay, you know. Say I should be happy they don't take me in. They don't hesitate to use my services though... This country is so bloody corrupt."
"If it isn't rude to ask..." said Inu-yasha carefully, "what do you do for a living?"
Sota fell quiet and looked questioningly at Kagome, who smiled.
"Sota is a Thief," she said, looking Inu-yasha straight in the eyes. "He steals for a living."
There was a very short pause in which Inu-yasha realized he was being put to some test. He wasn't sure of what it was though.
"Pay well?" he asked, looking at Sota. From the corner of his eye he saw Kagome relax and understood that he had passed the test.
Whatever it was.
"When I get good customers," Sota replied. "A good job with a decent percentage gives me quite a lot. But like I said before, there are weeks when I get nothing but lousy jobs and then it's not fun working five to nine. There have been times when I thought of giving it up and getting myself a desk job somewhere, but I like stealing. I do it partly for the rush." He paused and looked from Inu-yasha to Sesshoumaru with an amused look in his eyes. "Well here I am, telling two agents what it's like being a thief. I must say, I'm impressed. You don't even seem surprised."
"Look at what I have for a brother and you'll see I'm not a stranger to weird occupations," said Sesshoumaru, indicating Inu-yasha. "You don't want me to go into the list of what he did before I picked him up for the YSA."
"Really? You never told me you had a lot of funny jobs before," said Kagome, looking at Inu-yasha and grinning.
"He's exaggerating," said Inu-yasha shortly, and glared at his elder brother, warning him that one more word would mean his slow and painful death. Sesshoumaru took the hint, looking innocently up into the ceiling and twiddling his thumbs.
"Forget that I said anything, Kagome," he said. "I was lying, of course."
"Sure you were," grinned Kagome. "Well Sota, do you have any news for me about this case? He gets around a lot in his line of work (duh), so he's my most faithful source of information," she explained to the others.
"Well, yes... on the Naraku case, was it?" asked Sota, looking intensely at his sister.
"Exactly. Naraku." Kagome widened her eyes ever so slightly, so slightly that it would not have been noticed by someone who was not looking extremely carefully for anything the least suspicious.
Which, of course, Inu-yasha was. And so he noticed it, like he noticed the barely visible nod from Sota. The siblings were holding a silent conversation, trying to hide what they wanted said. Inu-yasha, however, could tell what they were saying as easily as if they had been speaking out loud: don't take all the information now. You'll have to tell me the rest later.
Once again he wondered what Kagome was hiding.
"Well, not much more than you already have, I guess..." Sota sighed and leaned back in the sofa, running a hand through his hair. "He's a tricky one, alright. Think I did a job for him once, although I can't be sure of that, of course. It was in some government building, and was for some search orders of the Spider Club. Everything was handled over phone, a cell phone of course."
"If you tattled, the police wouldn't have been able to trace the calls," said Inu-yasha.
"Exactly. Smart and efficient. I have found out something about him though: he's currently out of the loop, having been almost killed by our... by a priestess." The change in mid-sentence made Inu-yasha frown. By our what?
"So what's he doing?" asked Sesshoumaru.
"Creating a new body," answered Sota, smiling when he saw the other's nonplussed expression. "He is practically immortal, you know. The last remaining Frankenstein descendant died a while ago – I know because I removed some important papers from her house while they were busy with her funeral... they are currently in the possession of a Chinese business man in Germany... anyway, since the Frankenstein family line is now ended he had to use some other way of finding himself a new body. So I think he has been setting up a poison imp spell somewhere."
"That's disgusting," said Kagome, wrinkling her nose. "The demons kill each other only to finally become someone else's body. It's cruel murder."
"Another reason to throw his sorry ass in jail," said Inu-yasha casually. "Any idea of where the spell has been taking place?"
"Don't even know if he is using the poison imp spell," said Sota, shrugging his shoulders. "But if he is, it'll be in some large, unused storage house of some sort. Don't think you'll have much luck there though. He's bound to have his new body any day now."
"Anything on the Shikon deal, Sota?" asked Kagome.
"Not much." Sota shrugged again. "It's big alright, though. The whole damn country is talking about it, all the way up in Boston."
"Oh, you live in Boston?" asked Sesshoumaru. Inu-yasha looked at Kagome and saw that she had bit her lip, hard, and was staring at Sota.
"Oh no, we live in – " Sota glanced at Kagome and hesitated.
"New York," said Kagome, smiling brightly. "Although I move so often it's hard to say "we" anymore, right Sota?"
"Exactly," said Sota. "I live in New York anyway, even if my silly sis here never stays in the same place for three months at a time. She gets reassigned all the time. Anyway, the reason I know the rumours go all the way to Boston is that I collected some nice church silver from there not long ago."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," said Inu-yasha, frowning. "Wait a minute. I don't think there's anything wrong with your job, don't get me wrong, but there are things you just don't do! Not that I'm religious or anything, but you can't rob a church!"
"What kind of person do you think I am?" asked Sota, looking horrified. "I would never do something like that!"
"Good."
"I robbed the priest, of course."
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Sorry for taking so long to update this. Our computer's been sulky for a while...
elsiey: I know, isn't Goshinki cool? I kind of fell in love with him while I was writing this. Sadly, I don't think I'll be able to fit much more of him in... I miss him already...:( Anyway, glad to see you're still following the story!
Harei sky: Wow, new name! :) I wondered who it was first...:P
Inu-yasha'smistress: Tee-hee, I'm glad you liked Goshinki, 'cos I do, too. :)
AngeloflLight: Kikyo is miss Miko, yeah. I'm sorry if I confused you, but the reason I've called her miss Miko through the entire story is that Inu-yasha and the others are more formal when speaking to her. It would not do to call her by her first name.