CHAPTER FOUR

*

"Stupid monk," Inuyasha growled, flopping down beside the campfire. "Am I the only one who doesn't get taken in by his act?"

"No," Kagome said, with a few loops of yarn hanging out of her mouth. "Sango can tell you a lot more than you'll ever know by yourself."

"If everybody didn't always take his side," Inuyasha continued, as if he hadn't heard her, "I'd stomp him good. But somehow I'm always the bad guy, and he's got half the people he meets in the palm of his hand. If they knew half of what goes on-"

"That's because you always alienate people. Not everybody knows your bark is worse than your bite," Kagome said philosophically. "For a long time, I didn't know it myself. Of course, you didn't exactly make it easy for me to find out."

"Feh."

"Can you cut this for me?"

Inuyasha sullenly swiped through the yarn before returning to his former complaints. "Always thinkin' about one thing -- well, three things if you count money and Naraku. And everybody takes one look at his face and decides he's the soul of piety. I'm more a monk than he is. I'm not perfect but at least I don't grab every woman I meet... or cheat... or steal..." After sulking for a moment, he looked at the tangle of red and yellow tawn in Kagome's lap. "Whatcha doin'?"

"Knitting a scarf for Grandpa. I don't have time to shop for gifts anymore."

"Doesn't look like a scarf."

"Of course it doesn't! I've only gotten three rows done!" Kagome said, poking at him with a needle. "If I make you ramen, will you leave me alone and let me knit?"

"Yes," Inuyasha said, almost too quickly.

He hovered over the pot while the water boiled. When Kagome's timer went off, he pounced on the instant noodles and began slurping them down. Kagome sighed. I guess growing up on his own didn't give him the best table manners, she thought. On his infrequent visits to her house, he usually ate like a starved wolverine.

"This is actually kind of nice," she said, unravelling the top row. "It reminds me a little of how things were to start with."

"Hmrf?" Inuyasha said around a mouthful of noodles.

"You know, when it was just the two of us all the time. And Myoga, of course."

"Fifull crwwddddd..."

"You're not still mad at him about the baby stories, are you?"

"Feh." Inuyasha took another mouthful of ramen.

Kagome took a deep breath and tried again. "But remember how it was when we were first hunting jewel shards?"

"I remember you annoyed the hell out of me then."

"And I remember that every other sentence you said was an insult and I had to use that necklace all the time." Kagome stared at her congealing noodles. "Hey, Inuyasha? Did I annoy you because I actually annoyed you, or did I annoy you because I looked and smelled like Kikyo?"

"Hrmphmf," Inuyasha mumbled. Kagome suspected that she wouldn't understand the answer even if he weren't eating. She continued, "But even if we didn't get along very well then, it was actually kind of peaceful. I mean, we didn't know about Naraku then, so we thought we would just have to get the jewel shards one by one, taking each problem as it came. And we thought it would be like that until we got all the pieces. Boy were we wrong. Pretty strange, huh?"

Silence.

"Inuyasha?"

*

Clouds of heavy, foul-smelling smoke poured from the windows and doors of the old temple. Miroku covered his mouth and nose. He wished he had a poison-shielding mask like Sango did. It seemed to be doing a good job protecting her from this blasted stench.

The demon-slayer was standing downwind, in front of the temple. "Ready, Miroku?" she called.

"Ready!" Miroku loosened the beads on his hand.

Dozens of fist-sized shapes shot out of the smoke, veering madly from side to side. Miroku yanked the beads off his hand. Suddenly the smoke and bees rushed toward him, and vanished into the tiny hole in Miroku's hand. As the last of the frantically buzzing bees vanished, he whipped the beads back over his wrist.

"Done!" he called.

Sango ran into the temple to extinguish the smoke. Miroku flexed his hand, smiling in satisfaction.

The old monk was walking quickly down the road, with tears in his bloodshot eyes. "Dear Miroku, how can I thank you enough?" he said, smiling. "So quickly you destroyed those cursed bees! Now I and my fellow priests may stay here..."

"It was nothing," Miroku said modestly. Somehow, after almost dying because of Naraku's poisonous wasps, it was always very satisfying to suck up bees, hornets and wasps. He flexed his hand. "But much of the credit is owed to the young lady in there."

"Miroku!" Shippo called from Kirara's back. "Can I have this peach? It just fell off the tree."

"Of course you may," the old monk said, clasping his hands. "Help yourself, young fox."

A red blur shot into the orchard.

Sango came out with the remains of her incense. She had put her skirt back on over her slayer uniform. "We should head back to the camp," she said. "Inuyasha and Kagome will be wondering what happened to us if we take much longer."

Miroku's eyes widened. They had only been gone for a half hour. For himself, that would have been plenty of time -- but Inuyasha could be incredibly hesitant when it came to young ladies. He would need all the time Miroku could give him.

"I-I have something to do in the village near here," the young monk said, scratching his head. "After all, I promised to buy Shippo some sweet dumplings when we left."

Sango shrugged. "All right. I could use some more provisions and some polish for my boomerang."

"First we should partake of this orchard," Miroku said. He plucked something from a tree. "Apple?"

TO BE CONTINUED