Chapter 7: Lapsus Linguae
Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha.
Mmkay, so you may notice that this chapter is a little shorter than normal. There was more, but it's a long scene that really deserves to be at the start of a fresh chapter. So...until next time! Thank you so much for the reviews! (Also, I am proud to announce that I am no longer a teenager! That means I've been on this site for...what? four years? Jesus.)
Climb down to test the waters,
My hands feel like they're rusting away yea, yea.
So I'll pace around like a lamb before the slaughter.
--"The Theft" by Atreyu
Her temple resting against the cool glass of the window, she opened her eyes and watched the trees fly by—great, bony, bearded trees that clawed at the dull winter sky. She could hear the pavement crunch under the tires below, and once again, her eyes drifted shut.
"That bad, huh?"
The vehicle smoothly glided into the next lane. "I don't know," she murmured with a half-hearted shrug, sighing when she heard his wince and sympathetic smile. "No…not really."
He fell silent beside her, concentrating on the road, and she knew without looking at him that he was frowning again. She knew something was bothering him—though she wasn't sure if he'd appreciate her concern.
Sometimes Hiroshi was rather secretive. Even after only two weeks, she knew this.
After her audition, which had gone smoothly, Hiroshi had surprised her yet again by picking her up. She'd practically been bubbling with excitement once she was outdoors, and would have demanded that he take her out to dinner to celebrate a painless audition if he hadn't looked so moody and uneasy. And his mood had, for some reason, overrode her own previous joy.
He'd been scowling when she first saw him, leaning against the hood of his jeep, arms crossed over his chest as he stared without seeing. He was still carefully polite, of course, ushering her into the warm vehicle before sinking in himself. And for the first few minutes of the drive, she kept stealing glances of him from the corner of her eye. …He normally did a better job of masking negative emotions—that she knew this frightened her. And even now he was distracted, eyes always distant as he drove, and she listened to his soft music to pass the time.
With another quiet sigh, she straightened up in her seat and stared ahead, frowning when she realized that she obviously wasn't going to be dropped off at her house any time soon. This was the way to his house. Pale blue eyes flicked to her friend, studying his carefully blanked face and clenched jaw before noticing his knuckles pale as he tightened his grip on his steering wheel.
"Hiroshi?" she asked, voice no more than a whisper. Gold flew to her, and she winced when he forced a smile. "Where are we going?"
"My hou—aw, hell," he muttered under his breath, shooting her an apologetic glance and a half smile. "I wasn't even paying attention. I can take you to your house if that's where you want to go."
She shook her head, watching him from the corner of her eye. "I don't care. I don't mind going to your house, but…you look like you might need…some alone time," she admitted hesitantly.
He snorted, and she nearly smiled—if only it hadn't sounded quite so derisive. "Alone time is the last thing I need. And it's a Friday, so it's the last thing I'm going to get," he muttered.
"I'm guessing your day didn't get any better after you dropped me off."
His smile became bitter. "You guessed right."
"Want to talk about it?" She started when she heard his quiet gasp, and began to squirm in her chair when she felt him staring at her.
"Talk about it?" he repeated after a moment, and her brow furrowed, confused by his surprised wonder.
"Well…yeah. Like a confessional. It always makes me feel better at least." She felt her face heat up when he continued to stare at and through her. 'I thought I couldn't be embarrassed anymore,' she thought absently, meeting his deep eyes and covering herself with her arms. "You don't have to," she blurted out when the silence proved to be too much for her. "I just thought… I mean, I know I'm not your mother, but…" She cut herself off, and tore her eyes from his to stare out the window again.
And wasn't that what he needed right now? He rarely told his parents anything anymore—especially his mother, who had a tendency to completely overreact whenever she thought he was upset or sick. It had been that way ever since he could remember, and it had only gotten worse over the years—or maybe it just bothered him more. Either way, Miroku was his only true confidant. But there was something about Julia, too.
It was weird, wasn't it? They'd only known each other for two weeks, and it already felt like they were old friends, like they'd grown up together, sharing secrets.
"No," he agreed suddenly, quietly, "you're not." In the window, she watched his reflection smile softly as he turned onto a dirt road. "Confessions, huh? I'm not sure you can handle my baggage, Julia."
Her gaze snapped back to his, but then she relaxed—thank God the tension was gone now. And even if he chose not to confide in her, she knew the air between them had been mended. Somehow, with just a few words, she'd managed to jerk him back to her world. "We all have it," she assured him, voice low and soothing.
"…I suppose."
'Oh you can't seriously be thinking of pulling over… What a pussy,' the voice griped, and his gaze narrowed.
'Just to spite you,' he retorted pleasantly.
'You asshole. Whatever. I don't care—do what you want, but don't be surprised when she goes and runs off cause you aren't man enough to take care of your own problems.'
Taking a deep breath, he surprised her by pulling over to park on the side of the road. "God," he muttered to himself, dragging a hand across his long face, "I can't believe I'm doing this."
'That makes two of us, Dumb Shit.'
"…This must be really bad, huh?" she questioned quietly, taking in her surroundings before resting her eyes upon him.
He actually laughed at her, and began to back out, making to put the jeep back into drive, but her small hand clamped around his wrist, and he paused. She was amazingly strong to be so thin and frail and human. "Miroku should already be at my house," he hedged, obviously looking for some excuse out of this new predicament.
"You really don't want to talk about it? It's not an issue of trust, is it? Everything you say is between you and me."
She'd managed to surprise him again—brows raised with shock slowly melted into a firm, concerned slope. She was honestly worried that he didn't trust her? More like he didn't trust himself. All it took was one slip-up, one carelessly uncensored mistake, and she'd be horrified of him—and his family.
Her fingers twitched against his wrist before she left her hand slide back into her lap. He didn't bother hiding his disappointed frown, though he wasn't sure what, exactly, he was disappointed in—that she could make him give in so easily? That she wasn't touching him? Or that he was about to lie to her, and he knew it. Not like he had much of a choice there though. Maybe it was all three.
'What the hell,' he sighed to himself. "One of my co-workers—an old friend—has been missing for the past week," he confessed slowly, chewing on his words. "He was found dead about an hour ago." He watched her carefully, saw her eyes widen in horror and her face pale. Her mouth opened, then closed, then opened again.
"God," she breathed. "No wonder you're—oh, Hiro, I'm so sorry." And she really did look like she was honestly sorry for the death of a stranger, so he numbed a part of himself before even more questions were raised within him.
"You have nothing to apologize for."
"Are…are you sure about tonight? …I mean, I'm not going to be a bother, am I? I won't be insulted if you take me home," she assured him, but shut her mouth when he leaned over to flick her forehead with a finger, gold lightening in a careful amusement.
"Jules… Really. I'm sure. And I already told you that Miroku's there by now anyway. You can meet him."
She still looked unsure, rubbing the goosebumps from her arms as she stared ahead blindly, out the window. "How did it…how did it happen?"
'It probably wasn't fast,' he thought grimly in response to her question. 'If it was anything like the other murders, they took their time with him once he was no longer a threat, which means they probably took his hands first. Took his hands, then took their time.'
"I don't…know," he sighed, and gave her a questioning look, as though he were sizing her up, testing her waters, and she knew he was deciding exactly how much he wanted to tell her.
His job was something they didn't really discuss. Over the past two weeks—and of course their chance meeting almost three months ago—she'd gathered enough information that his job wasn't something he could talk openly about without having to bend or shatter the truth.
"Everything I tell you is meant for you only."
"Of course," she blurted quickly enough to almost sound offended, though she couldn't keep the horrified wonder and awe out of her voice.
"My father and I both work for my uncle. Father is the Head of Security, and I'm the Head of Investigation, sort of—"
"—So…" she interrupted, paused, bit her lip. "So you're the police?"
The smile he gave her was almost pitying, and she felt a spark of anger tamp itself out as quickly as it was struck when he ignored her question. "We've been after certain men for quite a while," he continued as though she'd never interrupted him to begin with, "but we made a mistake, and one of my father's men failed to touch base." His knuckles paled again as he clutched the steering wheel, and stared at her hand when she placed it over his. "Father doesn't handle these situations very well; he's not my uncle—he can't shut off his feelings on demand. Even if he could, he wouldn't. He's pissed, and I don't blame him. He trained Katsu himself—for years he worked with him and trained him, just as he does with any member of his team. And after he trained me, as well, Katsu became my sparring partner." He ignored her involuntary groan—almost a whimper, too, and watched her hand tighten over his. "I should be pissed, too, about what happened. But I'm not. I'm disappointed. If he went down that easily—" he cut himself off suddenly, stilling himself so completely she wondered if he was even breathing. And then she watched, fascinated, as color rushed into his newly-paled face.
'What happened to lying to her, hm?' it asked curiously, too startled to be a bastard, but he ignored it. He was too busy trying to convince himself that something so heartless hadn't actually come out of his mouth—
To her credit, she didn't say anything, and she didn't condemn him either, though he had no doubt she had been a bit startled by his confession. And he really hoped he could just get to his house without it being brought up. "Never mind. Forget I said anything," he muttered, shifting the jeep into drive and pulling back onto the road. But not before he turned on his music—his security blanket if he ever had one.
Julia remained silent and staring. She knew—he'd just revealed more about himself than he ever had. Or at least, he'd just proved to her that he was real. Before he'd been untouchable, perfect. But now he was just a little more believable. Her eyes trailed over him, letting nothing escape her attention; she was startled out of her reverie when she witnessed a shudder run down his spine.
He was really upset. Well…of course he was upset, but she hadn't known that he was really, really upset—about what he'd accidentally told her? Everything about him was coiled to spring, she noticed—it wasn't that difficult really. His knuckles were white around the steering wheel, his jaw clenched and ticking, his entire wiry posture stiff and rigid.
Normally he was so much better at hiding discomfort and aggravation. Normally the only way she could tell was the slight, defiant straightening of his back, or a sudden guarded look in his eyes that never quite reached his genial smile.
Now, however, he didn't bother hiding his irritation—presumably with himself. And under that was the smallest hint of fear—
'Dammit,' she thought in exasperated resignation when she realized what she was about to do, and knew that she had as much influence to stop it as an outsider did. Thoughts raced through her head, griping, but her heart was fluttering wildly.
Somehow even Hiro knew to snap out of his trance; he was staring at her now.
"If he weren't my father," Julia began lightly, but Hiroshi didn't miss the quiver in her voice, "I would hate Daddy."
She let that hang in the air for a good long moment as she tried to get used to the feeling of release… She felt like she was almost about to regain her freedom, in a weird way. "I…I might already… I don't know."
"Jules…"
"And I don't exactly go around talking about my parents. Believe it or not, you're the first person I've ever told…not even Jackson," she mused absently with a thoughtful, distant frown.
That thought alone set off a pleasant hum of vibrations within his body. It was like a light switch had just been flipped—he suddenly realized that he really, really liked this girl. Not in the 'Let's-get-married-and-pop-out-babies' kind of way, but in the 'you-make-watching-my-thoughts-difficult' kind of way. There was an easiness between them that rivaled Miroku's mellow friendship.
It was going to be difficult keeping anything from her later on, he just knew it, but it didn't worry him as much as it should have.
And she'd single-handedly managed to shock the hell out of him practically every day they were together. He was beginning to get used to it. And he liked that, too.
"So," she added brightly with a smile not quite as genuine as she would have liked, "I won't judge you if you won't judge me."
He passed his parent's clearing, but he didn't even notice. "Too late," he murmured, wide golden eyes falling on her for a second. He cleared his throat, and smiled at the windshield. "Thank you."
She turned back to look out of her window when she found there was nothing left to say, but only seconds had passed before Hiroshi broke the silence, his voice friendly and smiling now.
He was back to normal.
"I should probably warn you ahead of time… Miroku is a little shy around people. And he's a lot shy around women—"
"You mean to tell me there's a male in your family that isn't completely self-assured?"
"Well…there's another thing…"
"Uh-oh."
"Miroku really is a good guy…" he hedged.
"But?"
"Until he plays video games."
This obviously wasn't what she'd been expecting. Her eyebrows flew up in surprise. "Video games?"
"Do you play video games?"
"…I used to. Back when I was twelve."
"Well, that's a shame. That's pretty much all we do on Fridays."
She laughed. "You're such a dork."
He raised a knowing eyebrow, and tossed her a smug smile. "Well, then, what do you do on Fridays?" She stopped laughing.
"So what happens when he plays video games?" And he pretended that she didn't just change the subject.
"Are you familiar with the concept of Jekyll and Hyde? …Well, when he's got a controller in his hand, he suffers from…Selective Tourettes, for lack of a better term. He becomes a completely different person and can't be held responsible for the things that come out of his mouth." He waited patiently for her laughter to subside.
"Seriously?" She looked excited when he nodded an affirmative, and was practically bouncing in her seat. "You have to play video games tonight. I have to see this," she told him quite seriously as he parked before his house, and turned off his car.
"Mm."
"What does that even mean?" she asked , opening her door and slipping out. "Is that supposed to be a lazy 'yes'?"
"Well…yes."
"Then say 'yes'. It's only a single syllable—" She stopped when she noticed the red-haired young man sitting on the small porch with his back against Hiro's door. He looked more boyish than his cousin, even though his face was just as long and thin and his muscles a bit bulkier. He was watching her, and when he noticed she was staring back, his face shot up in flames, and he quickly turned his attention to his chuckling cousin as the hanyou climbed up the two steps to stand before him, toeing the mat he sat on and fishing a key from under it.
"You know…you could have let yourself in."
"Eh. It's a nice day out, anyway," he replied automatically before his eyes flickered to the woman again, asking Hiroshi a question with his eyes.
"Oh—yeah, this is Julia. Julia, Miroku."
"H-hello," he stuttered nervously, picking himself off the ground.
"Hiro," she purred with a wide grin, "you didn't tell me your cousin was so cute!" She nearly laughed when the man's face heated up, and turned a violent shade of red. Hiroshi merely rolled his eyes, opting to hide his smile from his soon-to-be-frustrated cousin as he unlocked the door.
"…Um…Thanks?" he muttered so quietly and uncertainly, she almost missed it. She did, however, notice the obvious relief when her grin shifted into a genuine smile.
"I'm just kidding," she assured him before stopping herself short and thinking her words over. "Not that you aren't cute!" she hurried to add, frustrated and mortified when the man's blush deepened to the same shade as his hair. "It's just…um…"
Hiro was laughing at her now, hand still resting on the door knob.
"Well," she announced finally, awkwardly, clasping her hands behind her back, "this backfired pretty quickly." Finally Miroku broke into a hesitant, but amused smile. "I'm sorry—Hiroshi told me you were shy," she explained, her smile much less threatening now as she held a hand out for Miroku to shake. "I was just trying to break the ice. I'm not normally that annoying, I swear."
"She's lying," Hiroshi muttered as he passed them both on his way to the kitchen. "Don't listen to her."
She released the kitsune's hand to pass over the threshold and stomp after him. "Hey! I am not a liar, you…you jerk!"
"Yeah, yeah. I told you how she 'broke the ice' with me, right? She broke into my house."
She ignored Miroku's lazy grin, and glared at the silver-haired man with her hands on her hips. "Okay, now, I really think you just need to get over that. That was ages ago."
"That was last week," he corrected.
A bottle of water went sailing over her head, and she heard it smack against skin—hopefully the open and waiting palm of the red-head somewhere behind her. She didn't hear a grunt that insinuated otherwise. He handed her a can of soda as he passed her to head for his living room, Miroku at his side.
"Since when do you keep soda in your fridge?"
"Since Julia started morphing into Kannon."
"Since Hiroshi is a nice person and a good friend," she corrected with a pointed look towards the inu hanyou.
Miroku collapsed across the love seat, feet hanging over the arm to rest flat on the floor, remote in his hand and an arm draped across his forehead as he flicked on the tube. "Kannon stopped by, by the way. He only stayed for a minute, though. He's got a party to get ready for apparently."
He grunted in response before swiping up the phone. "You like take-out, right?" he asked the strangely silent woman, who stood leaning against the door frame between the kitchen and the living room.
"Yeah."
"Anything in particular?"
"Wontons?"
"We get those anyway," Miroku told her quietly, eyes closed and face turned towards the ceiling. She studied him quietly for a moment, and as if he felt her eyes on him, his cheeks began to color.
"Well, good then. I'll eat anything really though," she added for the older man.
He nodded, putting the phone against his ear and walking back into the kitchen to place an order. Julia decided to use this time to get to know Miroku a little better.
"So…" she began inelegantly, rubbing her arms, "What do you do, Miroku? Do you go to school, or…"
"Ah, um—no—no school. I'm a video game designer," he told her quietly, tilting his head towards her, though she still couldn't see his eyes—his left buried under fiery bangs.
"Seriously? What is that like? I bet you actually have fun at work—can you wear pajamas?"
Though he still blushed, they weren't as noticeable, and his lips curved up into a barely-there smile. "It's pretty casual, I suppose. …I don't know about pajama-casual, but it's pretty laid-back."
She considered that for a moment. "So what does a video game designer do? Everything, or do you only focus on specific parts of a job?"
"I write plots a lot, but I'm trained to help out in a few other areas, such as calculations and graphic design, if they're low on staff or time."
She stared at him for a moment, mouth slightly ajar. "How old are you?"
Flushing renewed, he stared back up at the ceiling again. "Twenty-two."
Suddenly, she was the one that looked uncomfortable. "Is everyone in your family brilliant and successful?" she teased, fidgeting restlessly with the cotton material of her sweater dress.
For the first time since he laid down, he removed the arm covering head and met her eyes, his brow wrinkled, thin lips turned downward. With a soft sigh, he sat up and pinned his bangs away from his face. "My grandfather and his brother—Hiro's dad—have been around for awhile. They didn't have the best childhoods, and fought for families and success. In return, we're obligated to make the best of the resources given to us. Besides, opportunities and contacts go a long way," he told her with a smile, but she knew that wasn't true. Though it did make her feel a little better for some horrible reason.
It wasn't that they had everything handed to them, as he'd implied. They really were brilliant, right? And they probably worked their asses off. She knew Hiroshi did.
But so did she.
Where does a twenty-one year old waitress fit in with certified genius' of about the same age—a game designer and an investigator?
'The Head of Investigation,' she reminded herself, 'and a student.'
"It'll be ready in fifteen," Hiroshi interrupted from the doorway, and she could hear the frown in his voice, and felt his eyes fall on her. Her stomach turned. She didn't know if she could handle pity-lies from him on her make-do lifestyle.
But she didn't have to. He didn't say anything—just sat down on the couch with her and asked Miroku to toss him the remote. "She wants to play Halo with us tonight," he told the TV like a coward, and his cousin frozen, a stricken, panicked look flickering across his face.
"W-what? Hiro, no."
"And why not?" she cried out, drawing back to pin the flushed boy with heated, defiant eyes.
"Do you even know how to play?" he asked pointedly, and she made a show of wincing slowly, as if she was considering lying to him if only her brain weren't so slow.
"O-o-o-o-oh," she almost whistled. "Um…no—but I can learn!"
Miroku's astonished eyes narrowed into a dangerous glare, which he directed at his cousin. "You ass. You told her," he accused.
Hiroshi weighed his options, and sighed in resignation. "…Maybe. But even if I didn't, she'd still want to play. She hasn't played video games since she was twelve, poor depraved thing," he added with only a touch of sarcasm.
Now both of them were glaring at him, which he honestly wasn't all that used to. Multiple glares were meant mostly, if not only, for Kannon, Shippou, and his father. And occasionally Sesshoumaru, if Kagura and Inuyasha were in the same room with him. "…I'm going to go pick up the food now. You two fight it out."
Miroku groaned when the door closed.
"I can play?"
"You can't ask me that," he muttered without meeting her eye. "It's humiliating."
She sighed. "Fine." After all, she'd been humiliated before. It wasn't very fun. "So...what kind of games do you make?"
His look of shock slowly morphed into one of caution. "...I deal with FPS's mostly." And then at the confusion she couldn't mask, he clarified, "First Person Shooter games." She still looked blankly at him. "Um…they're the games where you see everything through your character's eyes?" If she couldn't understand that much, then there was no hope for her.
"Oh! We—my brother and I—used to play a few of them when we were younger. Well…" she admitted with a blush, "Jackson played. I died. A lot." She almost grinned when he perked up suddenly, obviously intrigued now that they were back on his playing field.
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah… So I mostly stuck to Nintendo games like Kirby. Or Diddy Kong Racing—Super Smash Bros. was great, too." And for a moment, she wished she was a kid again. "The memories of playing with my brother are the best I have, and quite a few of them involve video games."
He nodded slowly, obviously judging her through her taste and knowledge of games, which she thought was unfair, but whatever. Those were kick-ass games, and she would defend them until the day she died—even if she never played them again. "What, uh, FPS's have you played?"
With a frown, she dug further into the recesses of memories where goopy, virtual blood ran down her computer screen quite frequently. She spent more time dead than alive. "…Quake? Is that what it was called?"
He looked appalled, as though she'd just broken some law of etiquette that was simply unforgivable—like picking at scabs or her nose before rubbing her hands on the couch. "Quake? …While I'll admit that it was a decent step in gaming history," he muttered grudgingly, "it's so…outdated…"
"I seem to recall Halo being a classic back then, too," she told him defensively—though she wasn't sure why. She really couldn't care less about Quake now.
Oh great. Now she'd offended him.
"You cannot compare Halo to Quake. First of all, Quake was meant solely for the computer—"
"You're right," she interrupted rebelliously. "I can't compare them. I've never actually played Halo."
His mouth clamped shut against any retort he might have been planning, and his face reddened, though he didn't look embarrassed, so much as irritated at what he knew she'd just done. He looked like he wanted to glare at her, and she grinned when he finally did. "Fine," he snapped quietly, clearly sharing his cousin's regard on being manipulated. "We'll play."
Her grin widened.
O-O-O-O-O-O
Two hours later, Julia was sitting on her calves, unmindful of how far she was leaning forward off the edge of the couch, until Hiro would absently tug her back towards the back of it, only to repeat the process five minutes later.
Miroku, who'd actually scared the hell out of her the moment the game began, was sitting cross-legged on the floor, his contorted back pressed against the coffee table in front of her as he writhed and moved in the way he wanted his alien-killer guy to go.
Hiroshi, sitting on the opposite side of the couch, looked intense as well, and she was stunned at the way he seemed to melt into the game, all pretenses disappearing. She was amazed at the way his brilliant eyes glowed, his lips curling into anything from a smirking sneer to something akin to rage as he and Miroku fought for the lead.
Julia just died a lot.
And by 'a lot', she meant that they had to use the option screen to up the number of kills on an end-game, so that it'd last more than five minutes. She'd even managed to kill herself a few times.
"Stupid…analog…thingies," she grunted, working the joystick furiously, frowning when her vision went from complete sky, to complete ground. "How do you see things? I can't find anyone."
"That's because you're staring at the ground, Julia," Hiroshi sighed, reaching over to tilt her joystick back. "Here."
"I can see!" She grinned, and tried to make her man walk, only to release a cry of dismay when digital grass and dirt filled her screen again.
"That's not the one you use to walk. …That would be your vision." He wisely smothered his grin.
"If you're making fun of me, you can go right ahead and shove your controller up your—Son of a bitch," she yelped when someone sniped her right when she'd just started to right her vision.
Hiroshi, unaccustomed to her swearing, stared at her with wide eyes as her controller flew out of her hands and off the couch in her surprise.
"Um... Sorry. Wait...Who shot me?" she began, quickly getting over her abashment and rounding on the two cousins angrily. "I couldn't see, you jerks!" She was barely able to see a wicked grin cross the face of the red-head in front of her, and looked at the screen just in time to see a blue fuzzy ball stick to her character. Moments later there was an explosion, and the Master Chief flew ten feet into the air, a victim of a plasma grenade. "No! Miroku--I'm not even holding my ...remote...thing!"
"Stop—what are you doing?" Miroku asked, surprised out of his violent trance when Julia was suddenly kneeling on the coffee table, attacking his controller. The extraordinarily long sweats she donned, courtesy of Hiroshi ("Trust me. You don't want to play in a dress."), tangled around her feet and her bare elbow jammed into the half-eaten carton of forgotten lo mein. She ignored it.
"You're going to kill him!" she cried, biting her lip in her determination to save herself.
He stared up in surprise to see the girl stretched over his shoulder, grappling for his controller. A green eye flew to Hiroshi, who wasn't even bothering to kill his laughter at this point. "You've got to be kidding me…"
"You just blew me up! And I thought Hiro was a jerk—I wasn't even ready yet!" she ranted, gasping in surprise when she heard a shot fired.
Miroku released a furious roar, leaning forward suddenly to hunt down that bastard of a cousin, and Julia's unavoidable tumble off the table was evaded only by a hand snatching at the back of the oversized tank top, throwing her back to the couch.
She was going to thank him, but he hadn't even looked away from the screen and was currently up against Miroku, himself.
Who was an excellent shot.
A growl escaped his throat as he waited for respawn.
"Take that, you shit-faced boob!"
Hiroshi's lips twitched involuntarily—that was one he hadn't heard before. Julia wasn't as skilled yet at hiding her amusement, but she didn't laugh out loud, so Miroku never knew.
"A tank again?" the kit sneered. "Fuck the sniper; I'll rape you using only the pistols!"
And in the end, Julia had only managed to get four kills—three of which were Hiro, who, she strongly suspected, let her kill him (even in the heat of the game, he was just nice like that). And her kill against Miroku was a freak accident. She'd pressed the wrong button to jump, and ended up launching a grenade, which ricocheted off the canyon wall, and stuck to Miroku, who was sneaking up to stab her with a sword.
She fell asleep on the couch while watching the two cousins battle one-on-one, her feet forgotten on Hiroshi's lap.
O-O-O-O-O-O
Hiroshi's phone rang.
"Ignore it," Miroku demanded, but Hiroshi had already planned to. It eventually stopped, but his cell started ringing almost as soon as his landline had stopped. The red-head groaned when the game was paused as the hanyou carefully maneuvered around Julia's legs to pull his cell from his pocket.
Miroku dropped his controller to the side, lifting his arms over his head to stretch, back popping grotesquely. "I'm still winning."
Hiroshi smirked. "Not by much." The phone flipped open. "Hello?"
"H-Hiro!"
He stiffened, smile dying at the sound of his sister's frantic voice. "Mimi? Mimi, what's going on? Why are you crying?" He automatically held a hand up when the kitsune before him twisted to face him made to stand, eyebrows slanted in concern.
"Papa's m-mad!"
"Why is Father mad?"
"Hiro, he's going after Norio—I couldn't stop him, and he didn't take Tessaiga!" she wailed, her voice cracking.
He paused to consider the implications of his father hunting down Kimiko's boyfriend. "Shit—Okay, is anybody hurt?" he asked in a deliberately slow, even tone meant to calm her.
"Papa is hunting Norio!" she cried angrily, incase it had slipped past him the first time.
"Dammit, Mimi," he sighed irritably. "Forget him for a moment. Are you hurt?"
She quieted and sniffled. "No," she muttered at last, and Hiroshi's fingers eased the death grip he'd had on his cell.
"Alright. Alright, good. Is anyone there with you?"
"N-no. Kannon's at a party, and Mama's not here—she's on call this week. What if he gets into trouble?"
"Okay. Miroku will be there in a minute," he told her, meeting the standing kitsune's eyes. A single nod was all he needed. "I'll call Father and see what I can do." He ended the call before she could say anything else, his skilled fingers already punching out the number to his father's cell. "I'm going after Father," he told him, phone already up to his ear.
The kit made for the door, but paused. "…What about Julia?"
Hiroshi glanced down at the feet in his lap. "Shit. Uh…She stays here, I guess." He heard the door open and shut quietly as the ringing finally stopped.
"What?"
"What are you doing?" he asked briskly, rising to his feet carefully and pinching the cell between his cheek and his shoulder as he scooped up the sleeping woman.
"You talked to your sister then?"
"I just got off the phone with her actually," he bit out as pleasantly as he could manage. He resituated the woman, so that one arm looped under her back and through her bent legs, freeing his other arm. "I could have sworn I heard her say you were hunting down her boyfriend."
"Don't even bother, Hiroshi," his father snapped with a sudden, furious finality. "If you try to stop me, you might just get that fight you wanted so long ago. Now get your ass to the house, and watch Mimi until I get back."
He sighed, took a quick, but deep breath. "Father—stop and think about what you're do—Shit," he cursed as the line went dead. He quickly pressed redial, but the hanyou had already turned his phone off. He scowled at the cell in his hand before his eyes fell upon Julia's open face. And with a sigh, he nudged his bedroom door open with his foot, and placed her under the thick covers of his bed.
And then he was gone.
O-O-O-O-O-O
"He didn't even hurt me," Mimi whimpered, shrinking further into the black safety of her brother's blankets when Kannon's murderous scowl fell on her. The boy had arrived not even ten minutes after Hiro had, and he immediately succeeded in reversing all of Hiroshi's attempts at making the girl intelligible.
Miroku, the smart one, had volunteered to make her some apple cider, normally a weakness of the exuberant hanyou, and was downstairs now.
"Did he knock some screws loose? He tried to rape you, Mimi!" he cried incredulously, pausing in his pacing as he stood at the foot of his bed. "As in 'force you to have sex'! As in 'damn you for life'! How is that not hurting you?"
Her sobs began anew, and Hiroshi sighed. "Kannon—"
"And I don't want to hear shit from you. You should be beside me on this—she's your sister, too!"
Glaring at his brother, he whopped him upside the head. "Show some tact, you baka." His ears perked when he heard the front door open and slam shut, the clash of keys being flung upon the desk beside the door.
Good. His mother was finally here.
"Miroku—where—?"
"Kannon's room."
Her youngest son wasn't given long to squash the urge to punch his brother, but he managed somehow before the door opened, and both of them where shooed away by the worried mother.
Almost thirty minutes had passed since Kagome had kicked them out of the room to talk to her daughter, when the phone rang. Kannon, leaning against the counter with his arms crossed and a surly frown, refused to acknowledge it. So with a sigh, Hiroshi pushed his chair back from the table, and glanced at the number that flashed across the back of the phone. It wasn't one he recognized. But there weren't that many people calling the house at one in the morning.
"Hello?"
"Put your mother on the phone," his father muttered gruffly, skipping the preamble, and Hiroshi checked the caller id again.
"Christ," he groaned. "Please tell me you're not in jail right now."
"Is that the Old Man? I wanna talk to him," Kannon growled. He growled louder when his brother ignored him.
"I'm not in jail right now. Now put your mother on the phone."
"Jesus," he sighed wearily, thrusting the phone into Kannon's hands as he made for the stairs.
When Hiroshi entered, Kagome was sitting on the side of the bed, rubbing Mimi's back and assuring her that her Papa was fine. She looked at him expectantly, and he blanked his face as best he could. "Phone's for you," he told her, careful not to set Kimiko off again.
But even Mimi wasn't that naïve. When Kagome's eyes widened, hers watered.
-HOSHIT- Did we just see the other side of the scene from my Epilogue? Yes. Yes we did. Also, Inuyasha obviously begrudgingly forgives Sesshoumaru after he bails him out of jail without being a total dick about it--even though he's still pissed about his complete disregard for others. But he gets over it.
I didn't review this chapter, so sorry for any typos. I'll go through it later, and see what I can do.
Lapsus Linguae -- (Latin) Slip of the tongue
Trivia: Hiroshi hates being read. He's paranoid about people seeing his thoughts and emotions. (But I think you already knew that).
Next Chapter: The morning after. Julia and Mimi talk about Hiroshi. And other stuff that I haven't written yet...
Quotes of Randomness:
"This feeling that something is deeply wrong. Not basically, as some people might say, but deeply, as in to the core. Blood and bone. As in this is the stuff we're made of and there's no getting away." --"That Changes Everything" by Cathryn Alpert
"-awkward pause- ...Walker told me I have AIDS." --Haley Joel Osment on Walker, Texas Ranger (youtube that shit. I laughed until I cried.)
