A/N: Glad to see most of you seem to be enjoying the date! Let's hope Kyoya and Kagome do too... :P
After eating, they left the restaurant, stepping back outside into the chill air. Kagome looked excited once more, her eyes dancing with light.
"What now?" she asked him. "You had everything else planned out."
Kyoya gave her a half-smile. It was still odd to admit that he had planned out their entire date.
"I figured we'd be feeling a little sluggish from eating, so we might want to play some games," he suggested.
"Games!" Kagome said happily. "Oh, fun! I'm going to try to win you a toy!"
Kyoya laughed. "I think I'm the one who's supposed to win you a toy."
"Oh, boo hiss. That's not very equal opportunity, is it?"
They bickered cheerfully about the sexism inherent in date expectations all the way to the row of the games.
They passed the Fish Bowl Toss – Kyoya didn't want to have her carrying around a goldfish all day that would just die within a week anyway – as well as the Duck Pond – both of them were far too old for that. Kagome paused at the Basketball Toss and turned to him.
"You any good at basketball?" she asked.
Kyoya smirked. "I'm fair in reality, but not at this game."
Kagome tilted her head. "What's the difference?"
"The hoop here is elliptical," Kyoya said, gesturing. "If you look closely, you can tell that it's an oval in shape, the far end pointing out towards the thrower. It makes the hoop much more narrow, and much more difficult to get the ball to tip in. The ball's also over-inflated to be heavier and larger than a customary basketball, making this game a challenge for even the best basketball player."
The carnie standing at the booth to hand out the balls and take money stared at him open-mouthed. Kyoya smirked at him.
"Not basketball, then," Kagome said, giggling, and they moved on.
"Are all the games rigged like that?" Kagome asked a moment later. "Are they all inherently unfair?"
"Most of them," Kyoya told her. "The Milk Bottle Throw, for example, has the bottles weighted toward their bottoms, so it's nearly impossible to get all the bottles to fall off the platform. The balloons in the Balloon Darts game are severely under-inflated so the darts can't puncture them. And then some of them here are just flat-out hard – the marksmanship games, for example: the rifle shooting, the bow and arrow through the rings…"
Kagome's eyes lit up. "They have an archery game?"
"They have two – one with a crossbow, and one with a regular bow, but they're very difficult," he warned her. "Some of the games are a little easier – they just require extreme precision."
Kagome laughed.
"And that's easier?" she asked, amused. "Extreme precision?"
"It depends what you're good at," Kyoya told her with a smirk. "Watch."
He stopped at the Dip Bowl booth and raised his eyebrows at the carnie working the game.
"Push the bowling ball enough to get it over the hill, but not enough to have it come back," the worker told him. "Get it to stay in the dip and win a prize."
The prizes were fairly large stuffed animals, indicating that the game was harder than it looked. Kyoya put down ¥500 for three tries.
Kagome looked amused.
"I'm looking forward to watching this," she told him.
Kyoya took the first ball, rocking it with his fingers a little experimentally. He pushed it, and it slid up the track and over the hill, down and to the back of the track, before rolling back up over the hill again and landing exactly where it had started.
"Good try," the carnie told him, shrugging. "You get two more."
Kagome tilted her head.
"So this is extreme precision in the amount of force you exert?" she asked.
"Exactly." Kyoya pushed the ball for his second try. It was close, but he didn't even clear the first hump, and it rolled right back to him.
"Too bad. Last try," the carnie warned him.
Kagome blew air out loudly from her lips in a pfffft noise.
"I would be awful at this game," she told him, a half-smile on her face. "I'm terrible at math and physics."
"It is lucky for you," Kyoya told her, releasing his last ball with computer-like precision, "that I am not."
The ball rolled up and over the first hump, up the second, and slid back down, almost cresting the first hump again but unable to make it over the hill, finally sliding back into the valley. A spinning light went off, indicating him a winner, and Kyoya gave Kagome a smug grin.
"Good job." The carnie looked surprised. "You get to pick an animal."
Kyoya looked to Kagome, and Kagome happily perused the stuffed animals, before finally selecting a large reddish-looking fox. She hugged it happily, smiling widely at Kyoya.
"Thanks," she said, and Kyoya could tell she was genuinely excited to have the animal. "This is great. Though, I have to win you one now."
"Go right ahead," Kyoya said with a smile. He didn't tell her how he'd come here on Friday and practiced the bowling ball game over and over and over until he was positive he'd be able to replicate his previous wins within three tries. All that mattered was that he'd impressed her, and she was happy. He doubted he'd be able to win any of the rigged games without practice beforehand.
Kagome moved across the lane unerringly, directly towards the marksmanship games. Kyoya raised an eyebrow.
"These are hard," he said. "Are you sure-"
"I'm sure."
She skipped over the rifle game where you had to shoot out all of a little star, to his surprise. He'd thought she might try that. Instead, she went next door to the archery game.
"Explain this to me," she told the carnie. "I want to play."
The carnie blinked, slowly looked her up and down, and smirked.
"You sure?" he said. "This is-"
"I want to play," Kagome said firmly, and the carnie shrugged.
"The crossbow game is to knock down the targets in box." He gestured to a plexiglass box toward the end of the field. "The other archery game is to get your arrow through all three rings and still hit the target at the end of the field."
Kyoya examined the rings. They were level, to his surprise, but each got progressively smaller. It would take extreme control over the arrow and the arrow's descent with gravity to not have the fletching knock the arrow off its course.
"I want to play this one," Kagome told him. "How much is it?"
"¥200 an arrow, 3 for ¥500," he said.
"That's okay," Kagome said, putting down her money. "I'll only need one."
The carnie raised an eyebrow but said nothing, setting down the bow and one arrow on the bench.
Kyoya watched and waited, puzzled. Kagome wasn't unintelligent – she had to realize how rigged the game was. She examined the bow, stretching the string, before glancing around.
"Give me that other bow," she told the carnie. "The one you give to large men."
The carnie once again raised his eyebrows but traded the bow. Kagome tested the string of this one and smiled.
"Much better," she said, satisfied.
She hefted the bow up and picked up her arrow, notching it just above the hand hold.
Kyoya was surprised to realize that the movement was familiar to her – she'd fallen into an archer's stance without hesitation. She had proper posture, and her eyes were focused unerringly on the target as she aimed the arrow.
It was the oddest thing in the world – when would Kagome have ever used a bow and arrow before? But her movements were assured and confident, and her eyes were suddenly narrowly focused, as if she were tuning out everything else in the world – she looked like a modern incarnation of a warrior goddess or ancient huntress, with that look in her eyes. Kyoya found his breath taken away.
"Hit the mark," Kagome murmured, and she let the arrow go.
There was a thunk a moment later, and both Kyoya and the carnie stared.
Not only had the arrow breezed through all three rings effortlessly, but it was stuck dead in the middle of the target at the end of the way, marking a perfect bulls-eye.
Kyoya turned to Kagome in astonishment. She looked pleased, taking in the path her arrow had taken, before she turned to Kyoya and laughed.
"You get to pick a prize now," she told him with a grin. "That's how this works, right?"
The carnie turned to Kagome, a new respect in his eyes.
"That was incredible," he told her. "You didn't have to hit the bulls-eye – just get the arrow to stick in the target. I've never seen anyone do anything like that, and I've been working this game for two years."
Kagome gave him a shrug and a jaunty grin.
"Guess I'm just special," she said, and her eyes danced.
"How did you do that?" Kyoya asked her, incredulous. "How did you possibly manage to do that? That was a feat of marksmanship many professional archers couldn't accomplish."
"I used to practice archery a lot," Kagome said with a shrug. "A lot a lot. There's not all that much to do for fun on a shrine. I guess I still have it in me."
She smiled up at him beatifically, and Kyoya raised an eyebrow. Kagome laughed and gave him an impish look.
"Go pick out your prize," she told him, smiling.
Kyoya took a slow look around the booth, examining the prizes. Most of the animals here were much bigger – in accordance with the difficulty of the game, he assumed. Some of them were smaller, and he wondered if you got the arrow through the rings but didn't hit the target if you got a consolation prize. He brushed past immense dragons, fairies, and bears, before stopped short, astonished.
"This one," he said, pointing. "I want this one."
The carnie gave him an odd look.
"You can take a big one," he told him.
"No, I want this one," Kyoya said firmly, and the carnie shrugged and got it down for him.
Kagome laughed when she saw.
"It looks exactly like Honey's bun-bun!" she exclaimed. Her eyes leapt up to meet his, sparkling. "You got it for a back-up, right? In case anything happens to Honey's and he goes on a rage?"
"How did you know about Honey's rages?" Kyoya asked her, chuckling. "You haven't been privy to one just yet."
"They're legendary," Kagome said with a smile. "The twins and Haruhi have both warned me repeatedly." She paused, eyes sparkling. "They've warned me about you repeatedly too, you know."
"Oh, have they?" Kyoya queried. He smirked as he tucked the bunny under his left arm, and he and Kagome set off back towards the rides without discussion. "What have they told you?"
"Never to wake you up in the morning, ever. That you're the Shadow King, and you have a force at your disposal that could take on Japan's entire criminal underworld and win. That you know everything about everyone ever, though I don't believe that one." Kagome shot him and grin, and Kyoya gave her a nod of acknowledgement. He still didn't know much about Kagome, despite his best efforts, and Kagome knew it, too. "Haruhi warned me that you don't date, too," Kagome told him, her face slightly flushed, "when she realized that I liked you. But here we are, so I take all their 'warnings' with a grain of salt."
Kyoya felt his throat grow tight. He hadn't realized that Kagome had liked him enough to talk about it with her friends. He'd thought perhaps she'd just been kind of generally interested, enough to go out with him. But for her to admit she had a crush on him…
Kyoya felt his heart leap.
"Did anybody warn you about me?" Kagome asked, glancing up at him, and Kyoya smirked.
"Your body guard," Kyoya told her, and Kagome nearly fell over in shock.
"Koga?" she said, her eyes wide.
"Is there another?" Kyoya asked, and Kagome looked mad.
"What did he tell you?" she demanded. "He has no right-"
"Relax, Kagome," Kyoya said, his tone soothing. "He just told me to be careful not to touch you, to not push you farther than you wanted to go, and to make sure you had a good time." He looked down at her, his eyes meeting hers. "He seemed concerned, but relieved. It seemed like you hadn't gone out on a date in a long time."
Kagome sighed. "I suppose that's true," she admitted.
Kyoya didn't like the solemn air she'd assumed. The last thing he'd wanted was to make her dwell on something sad.
"And, of course," Kyoya said, is tone sly, "your brother warned me about you…"
Kagome's head whipped towards his, and Kyoya held back a laugh.
"Sota?" Kagome said. She started to grin. "What'd he warn you about?"
"That you cheat in games," Kyoya said promptly. "I watched you back there at the archery booth to see if you cheated, but I couldn't detect any cheating, so maybe you're just that good-"
Kagome squirmed, and Kyoya fought to keep his eyes from widening. She had cheated?
"-and you only cheat in video games and board games. He warned me that you're mean when you wrestle and you play dirty tricks, and that your cooking is a disaster unless you're out camping in the middle of nowhere – apparently then you can cook."
Kagome was laughing now, smiling, and Kyoya felt relieved. He looked at Kagome, giving her a soft smile, and Kagome's laughed faded away, replaced by a look of wonder on her face.
"He also warned me that you're too nice to people," Kyoya told her. "That you give of yourself freely to your friends, until you have nothing left. He warned me that I might need to guard you, to make sure you don't help people too much, and that if I won your loyalty, I'd have it for life."
Kagome's eyes widened, and Kyoya could feel her breath coming shorter. Her eyes were dilated, and Kyoya couldn't drag his own eyes from her lips.
"That was nice of him," Kagome said finally, tearing her eyes away, and Kyoya was finally able to draw breath normally again.
"It was," he agreed.
The moment was broken, but they walked side by side next to each other in amicable silence, Kyoya lost in thought about what it'd be like to have Kagome with him for life, unable to touch or kiss her, but always having her by his side.
Then Kagome caught his hand.
Kyoya looked at her immediately, incredulously, but Kagome's face was firmly faced forward, her cheeks tinged with pink. He glanced down at their hands – his right in her left – and realized – she was wearing her gloves. Her barely-there, nude silk gloves, the one's she'd told him she'd traded Nekozawa information for.
She thought it was worth the risk to touch him. Because she wanted to touch him.
His heart warmed.
Turning her hand over in his and squeezing it, Kyoya held her hand as they walked back to the rides.
Read it? Please review! It's the only way I have any idea how many people are actually reading and following along with the story :)