Title: Secretly Plotting
Author: aimee_blue
Prompt: I.O.U. [oneshot#49]
Genre: Humour Romance
Words: 1,279
Rating: T
Summary: Sesshoumaru is plotting but how long can he keep Kagome in the dark?
Fingers paused in their typing and hovered over laptop keys as a shiver ran down Sango's spine. Miroku, noting the pause in the furious typing of his girlfriend, glanced up to see her fidgeting uncomfortably.
"What is it?" Miroku asked concernedly, carefully folding his newspaper and resting his coffee against it.
They were sat outside their local cafe, basking in the Sunday afternoon sunshine, half hearted as the sun was, drinking coffee and, in Sango's case, attempting to catch up on her hectic schedule on her laptop.
"Feels like..." she paused to shut her laptop warily, "trouble."
"You have no idea how right you are," Sesshoumaru uttered, materialising beside Sango in a feat that was downright disconcerting.
"Sesshoumaru-san!" Miroku half-yelped, knocking his coffee over with his elbow and glumly watching it saturate his once pristine copy of the Yomiuri Shimbun.
Rolling her eyes at her boyfriend's little under-pressure-calamity, Sango twisted in her seat to look up at the demon stood behind her, golden eyes narrowed.
"Can we help you?" she asked tentatively, knowing of his arrogant mannerisms second hand from Kagome made her cautious; she had a bad feeling that this wasn't going to end well for her.
"I have come here to collect," Sesshoumaru announced, "you do remember relegating me to babysitting a delirious Kagome, don't you?"
Nervous glances were swapped and hesitantly they both nodded.
"You've come to collect on an I.O.U.?" Miroku ventured.
"Indeed," Sesshoumaru nodded, pleased that they had caught on so quickly, he had very little patience for fools.
"What do you want?" Sango asked, eyes narrowing distrustfully and rightly so; Sesshoumaru was in a devious mood.
"Give me your key," he commanded, tossing his hair back behind his shoulder in a move that made the shop waitress swoon slightly.
"Key?" Sango repeated in bemusement, tilting her head to one side.
"To your apartment," Sesshoumaru clarified impatiently, resisting the urge to tap his foot in annoyance.
Fierce hazel eyes clashed with calculating golden orbs and the air between them fizzled with an undercurrent of hostility.
"Why?" Miroku intervened, interrupting the non-verbal standoff and placing a restraining hand on Sango's shoulder.
"My reasons are my own," Sesshoumaru sniffed haughtily, turning his chin up at Sango. Miroku's grip subsequently became tighter as he tried to prevent his girlfriend from mauling the dog-demon.
With a strained smile, Miroku tried to diffuse the situation. "We trust that you will be an outstanding houseguest."
A silver brow quirked and Sesshoumaru snatched the proffered key with a haughty hair toss.
Crafty human, asking for favours without actually asking.
The couple watched the demon stalk away with incredulous eyes.
"We are not telling Kagome that we gave him that key," Sango decided.
"Huh?"
"You remember Inuyasha's beads of subjugation?"
"Vividly."
"Think ten times worse."
Miroku winced. "Silence is golden, after all."
"I'm glad we agree."
***
Phone sandwiched in between her shoulder and her ear, Kagome reached up towards the top shelf of her closet.
Smirking in triumph as her fingers closed around the familiar feel of satin, she pulled the photo album down from its hiding nook.
The lavender coloured satin was her mother's preference, because it was previously her mother's album, but when Kagome had moved out she'd taken it with her as it was filled with childhood photographs. Her mother had called it a celebration of her childhood now that she was all grown up.
"I found it!" she spoke into the phone, grinning with reminiscence as she flicked through the photographs, dwelling nostalgically on the ones of her and Hiten playing outside his mothers bakery, climbing the
Goshinboku at her family's shrine, crossing the stepping stones across the river...
"There's one with you when you went fishing that day," Kagome giggled, studying Hiten's massive pout in the photograph.
Hiten chuckled. "You mean the time I went on my own, without bate and caught nothing? Yeah I remember that."
"Your pout is cute," Kagome chuckled, "I think I'll bring these with me to the bakery the next time I go."
"And make me look a fool in front of my employees," Hiten surmised, "I'm sure that'll make them fear and respect me."
Giggling again and realising she sounded like an idiot, Kagome ended the call and went back to her previous task of watering the pot-plants that lived out on their apartment's little balcony.
Snagging her new Hello Kitty ear buds before she escaped out to try and bring her poor dehydrated plants back to life, she became immersed in her little potted-plant world, obscured from her apartment by the heavy linen
drapes that covered the balcony door.
So far away was she in her little universe, that she didn't even notice the door to the apartment open and close, admitting a demon. Nor did she notice him pocket her roommate's key.
Poor oblivious Kagome.
Sesshoumaru, of course, realised that Kagome was out on her balcony instantaneously when he slipped into the apartment. Her off-key warbling was hard to ignore, but he rolled his eyes and made a mental note to never go to karaoke with her. Ever.
Sesshoumaru was possessive to a fault and, right now, his possession was playing at avoiding him. So, in order to protect her from a thunder demon who had no business sniffing round her, he had been forced to take drastic measures.
Those drastic measures included visiting a demonic shaman to acquire a ward that, as Sesshoumaru now discovered, fit snugly behind the ridge of the doorframe without being visible to anyone in the apartment.
Yes, that would do nicely.
Sesshoumaru did not share well, and this little ward would ensure that anyone with the ability to control lightning would not be able to enter Kagome's apartment.
Allowing himself a self-satisfied little smirk, Sesshoumaru left the apartment soundlessly.
Kagome shuddered violently and pushed the drape aside to peer into the apartment, wilted orchid in hand.
"Little piggy, little piggy, let me in. Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin..." Kagome frowned thoughtfully, "now why on earth did that pop into my head? If that was a premonition, I want my darned money back," she harrumphed, turning back to her parched plants, "stupid cryptic warnings..."
Outside the door, Sesshoumaru growled under his breath. "I am not a wolf; an Inu is much more terrifying..."
***
Peering over the top of her computer monitor, Kagome became affronted when Sesshoumaru turned his nose up at her and pouted.
Leaning in conspiratorially, she nudged Jakotsu. "What's wrong with Sesshoumaru?"
"Why are you asking me?" Jakotsu quirked a brow, "he's not my lover."
"He's not mine either," Kagome rebuked, "but he is sulking."
Jakotsu became pensive. "Maybe because you've been paying too much attention to the Muffin Man," he ventured,
waving his hand in a blasé manner.
Kagome stifled her laughter behind a legal pad. "Muffin Man? You can't seriously be calling Hiten-kun, the Muffin Man."
Jakotsu waved aside her exclamation and pulled her into his counsel. "Didn't you bring two bentō today?"
"Yeah, but one was for Hiten, we were supposed to be having lunch together."
"Cancel lunch and reconcile with the brooding puppy," Jakotsu advised, "home cooking might just be the way to his heart."
"Your presumption being that I can actually cook," she niggled, earning herself a shooing motion and a hair toss.
Sesshoumaru glanced up from his manuscript as a shadow fell over his desk. The proffered bentō box was a peace offering and it soothed his wounded pride at being neglected for a lesser demon and assuaged his niggling worry that she'd somehow figure out he'd been snooping in her apartment.
As he took it, she smiled. "You're welcome."