Genuine Fake
by Viitoria

Chapter Five: Blackmail Material

Clips of things hidden away greeted him sore eyes. Things that never should have happened, that were beyond what anyone should have gone through. Every file was dated a year ago, meaning a fifteen year old girl did all this. Didn't she have any feeling at all? After all, it was to her own flesh and blood...

More clicks and new windows were brought up, showcasing the files and lawyers father and daughter presses against abuse for Kagome. Apparently, the girl's mother would not back down and give the father custody of her daughter. Inuyasha wondered why, if the girl was so troublesome in the first place.

Other articles described the charges pressed. None told what happened to her mother and brother. It was just too much information for someone to digest. God, he thought in horror, she even tried to sue them. Then he paused, examining the said information a bit closer. Who issued that? It wasn't Kagome; her name didn't appear, only her mother's. Or did it? In the bottom corner, where it should have said the person, had been blacked out. So the bitch was smart enough to pull this off and keep it secret, huh?

Inuyasha thought back to the new article he had found the job from. It released only information the Higurashi's had wanted to release, putting Kagome forth as a lonely girl to be pitied. Inuyasha extracted his cell phone from his pockets, dialing a long unused number.

"Myoga, I have a case for you that you might find a bit of a challenge. You willing to take it?—Good. The Higurashi's—the father's a successful lawyer—No, I don't know if he was the one who conned the governor into his position—why would I know that, fleabag? You're the lawyer here.

"—Yeah, yeah. I have files for you. The computer's heavily passworded and isn't connected to the 'net—yeah, I guess I could burn a copy—No, the daughter!—Idiot—why do you need to know why I'm asking?—Yes, I'm in their house. Yes, I've broken into something I'm not supposed to, and yes, I'm running out of time. Are you taking the fucking case or not?—Thank you!" He snapped his phone shut. He had forgotten how harrying on the nerves talking to their family lawyer was.

But it was all worth it if he could expose that fake airhead for who she really was. And to think he was that close to getting to be able to tolerate her. He held her hand! Then she threw it all back in his face. Then Kouga had come after him; did she know how embarrassing it was to lose to the wolf-youkai in front of all his friends? Inuyasha was purely and truly disgusted. So why did he feel so bad about doing this?

...............................

Kagome was in a good mood the next morning, and she was convinced no one could spoil it. Yesterday was all but forgotten and the night before she had stayed up listening her entire collection of j-pop. But how wrong she was. Donning her uniform, she found everything put away in her backpack, like always. With a smile on her face, she ran down; Inuyasha wouldn't have to yell at her to come down today. Only, he was the one who was late today.

"Inuyasha!" She called.

No one answered, but she saw the hanyou descend the stairs, all articles of the uniform in place. He brushed past her to the car without so much as a word of exchange. She shrugged and followed. Like she said, nothing could break her mood.

In the car, no words were offered, only an awkward silence filling the space where once insults might have been traded. She couldn't put a finger on it, but it just didn't feel right. Did he watch the news that last time, too? After all, she did have a tv in her bedroom. She decided to ask. "Did you watch the news that one night?"

He turned her, one hand dropping off the steering wheel. "Why would I want to watch the news?"

He didn't snap at me. There's something wrong, she confirmed. "Because it was interesting?" she tried. Probably wouldn't work anyway; it had come out a question.

"Look, girl, I don't care what you watch or what think is interesting, okay? I'm just going to make one thing clear: I'm only staying on with this godamn-fucking job because of the contract. If I could, I would tear it up; but unlike you, I actually care about my rep." With that number said, he turned back to driving, leaving an amazed Kagome staring.

It took her a few minutes to regain her dignity, but when she did, she muttered something under her breath. "Like you have a reputation." His ears twitched her way, but he ignored her.

At school, he hung a few steps behind her the entire time while she talked with her friends. It freaked her out a bit, but she was distracted too by Yuka and Ayumi's strange behavior. They kept on looking around them, as if afraid to be caught by someone. Just like Inuyasha's behavior, though, she didn't press it much.

Kouga tried to talk to her in the morning, but she found that she couldn't really pay attention. It didn't help that he tried to bait Inuyasha every few minutes, but the hanyou didn't respond. "Kouga," she finally spoke up. "It's almost time for class; I got to go now, kay?" She reached up on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek dutifully. She turned around and caught Inuyasha staring. When he saw that she had seen him, he quickly pulled his gaze back to the ground again.

She frowned, but let her words drop. In the classroom, even the teachers were surprised. Inuyasha, while not a trouble student, had a tendency to make loud, sarcastic remarks catching everything from the smallest mistakes the teacher's lecture had. Just the other day during an important English exam, he had whispered something loudly to Kagome about the how he never learned half the things on the test. Naturally, the teacher, angry, had stormed up to him and asked him exactly what he didn't get. By then, he hadn't even bothered to be discreet about it, and blatantly pointed every single word misusage. "I won't even get into the verbs," he had muttered. It was such a sight to see the teacher flustered that the test never really got finished.

But not today. Today, Inuyasha was obedient to the point of being polite; and if that didn't confuse everyone, nothing would. But then again, he didn't seem to really be paying attention.

Then, the period before lunch, and the one after, she had caught him staring at her again. Did he like her?

She could tell the servants were disturbed at his behavior as well. The maids gossiped more than usual; the butler began opening the doors again—no one had slammed the door open for a while now. But the cook was the one who was most worried when Inuyasha refused his Ramen and instead ate the most expensive things he could find in the kitchen. He didn't even raid the place anymore.

For almost a week things continued as they did, until she finally decided to try again on Friday. "Hey, Inuyasha, I'm going on a date with Kouga tonight, kay?" She saw with amusement as his eyes snapped back into focus as he glared. He opened his mouth, but upon second thought, closed it again. Then he reverted back to his faraway expression.

"That's good. Have fun." She frowned. What was wrong with him? She hadn't even caught a trace of sarcasm in that remark, just manifest disregard. She didn't even really have a date with Kouga. Which only reminded her on how few time she did get together with her supposed boyfriend. And those time were just so he could show her off. Inuyasha wouldn't do that to me, she thought. He would—she caught herself just in time. First off, she didn't like the guy (not to mention the fact that he was basically hired help, good family or not). Second, she was more than sure he didn't like her. Another part of her protested. What about all the times you caught him staring today?

Shaking herself free of such disturbing thoughts, she slipped out the door to find some place that she could stay until her 'date' with Kouga ended.

Unknown to her, Inuyasha had been waiting all week for such a thing to happen. The girl had slept in her regular room the whole week, casting him strange looks. He deemed it irritating, but didn't say anything. He knew his silence pissed off his 'employer' more than anything else. "I'm touched that you're worried," he muttered to the wall, then hand clasping chest, he mimed heartbreak to the empty space around him. "What the hell am I doing?" he asked himself and pushed of the pink carpet on which he had been seated.

Punching the codes in once again, he hacked into the computer.

...............................

Mr. Higurashi was sitting at his desk, lost in thought over the predicament of family when the monitor beside him beeped alert. He glanced up. It was only the machine telling him that Kagome had gone into her 'secret' computer to type in her diary again. He returned to work.

After a while, he paused and returned to the screen, remembering something. Kagome had left just a few minutes ago on a date; she had informed him herself with yet another peck on the cheek. Women. But who would...? Putting his pen down on the desk, he buzzed his secretary in. "Turn on the security monitor for Kagome's room for me, will you?"

In the corner, another LCD monitor turned on, running a picture of his daughter's room. No one was there. Studying it closely, he panned the camera with the controller so it faced the door. It was closed, and from the angle of the knob, locked, too. That meant someone was in the room. He moved the camera to face the bookshelf. It had been slid open, and the coding door slightly ajar.

Walking over to his voice box again, he pressed the little red button. "Now the one for the Room," he instructed. The monitor beside the previous one flashed on as well.

"What do we have here?—Takagi." His suspicions confirmed, he returned to his own computer. With some tapping of keys and a few clicks, he had brought up a window displaying all files accessed on the Room. The diary had been opened, multiple time...once in the middle of the night, the rest in early morning. The other files, which he knew her daughter never looked at, had been searched through multiple times. "Well, well," he mused aloud. "That young Takagi certainly knows his way around computers." The boy had even managed to extract a copy of the documents.

"Smart, aren't you boy? But there is no way I'm going to let you leave with all that." He called his secretary again, this time to bring him the contract papers the hanyou had signed. He smiled as he read through them. "Guess he's stuck with us for a bit more, huh?" He could afford to let Kagome deal with this; after all his daughter wouldn't react well to someone reading her diary, no? Naraku had informed her that she had called him the other day to look up everything on one Inuyasha Takagi. What he dug up and a mine in blackmail materials. His daughter was a chip off the old block, all right.

He sat back and waited patiently for the sound of her new Porsche to pull into on of the garages.

It had taken a while for her to find something to do, but Kagome finally found the perfect thing: the movies. After all, who could resist a subtitled new released from America? She had gone through a bag of popcorn, a Pepsi and killed two and an half hours on her 'date', while managing to have fun. I really should get out more by myself, she thought. Or maybe I could pull Inuyasha along next time, too.

Climbing out of the car, she approached the main door. Reaching for the knob to open it, she was again surprised as it swung open for her. In the short weeks that Inuyasha had been with her, she'd gotten used to opening her own doors again. "Oh, thanks," she muttered to the butler, who stared at her like she had grown an extra head.

"The master would like to speak to you in his office, miss," he informed her. She nodded and kicked off her heels, heading upstairs. Was she in trouble? Her father almost never asked for her. He only came when he wanted to; or when she decided she needed some parent around. Sometimes she thought he didn't care enough. Mom always butted into my business, she assured herself. Only she didn't quite believe...

She tried opening the door again, but the secretary beat her to it. Sticking her tongue out, she brushed past the annoying woman. She opened the inner office door, and this time, she finally managed it. "Dad? Did you call?"

He looked up and nodded. "Yes, yes." He motioned to the seat. "Do take a seat, dear."

She obliged and sat in the large seat across from him, feeling strangely like one of those clients he scrutinized before taking on a case, or refusing it. "So..." she started, trying to get him to talk. Silences were always awkward between them.

"Well, have you been getting up at midnight to write in that diary of yours?" he finally asked.

Her brow furrowed; why would he ask that? "No, why?"

"Then you might want to see this." She got up and walked around hurriedly; if anyone was reading her diary...She stared at the window. It informed her that her computer had been hacked into much more than she'd used in since. She froze. Since Inuyasha got here.

"You think it's him?" she asked.

"Better yet," her father replied steadily. "I know it's him. Come here, look at that monitor." She followed his finger to the LCD screen and stared. Her first reaction was annoyance at her father for installing cameras in her room as well as the other one. Her second was disbelief. Inuyasha wouldn't do that. Would he? That's why he was acting so strange this last week. That jerk! But strangely enough, anger didn't come just yet. She did, however, feel a pit in the bottom of her stomach.

She watched as the hanyou shut down the machine, moving out. "Well?" her father prodded. "Aren't you going to eat him out?"

"I doubt he's going to taste all that good, Dad," she remarked. Rubbing her temples, she closed her eyes. "I have a migraine just now, I'm going to deal with him when my head lets me think better. Plus, we don't have any real witnesses and I'm betting you didn't have that on tape yet. I'll catch him in the act next time."

"That's my girl," her dad cheered.

What came out of Kagome's mouth next was something she always wanted to say to Kouga every time, but never really said out loud. An automatic reaction due to tiredness, she supposed afterwards. "Shut up, Kouga. I'm an not your girl."

Her dad stared after her. "Excuse me, Kagome, but would you care to repeat that?"

Realizing that it was her dad, she stopped and turned around. "I'm sorry dad! I thought you were Kouga, and it just came out of my mouth."

"Hmm. Isn't Kouga your boyfriend."

She fidgeted uncomfortably. "Well, yes, but..."

He chuckled. "It's alright. Go get some sleep; daddy needs to do some work." She nodded and continued out. "Oh, and you're brother's going to be visiting next week; legal circumstances," he added. Right then, her head was too clouded to fully take in the new information.

In the hallway heading towards her room, she saw Inuyasha. The two shared an equally icy stare for some moments, before the giggling of a pair of servant girls broke their revere. Staring at the ground, both passed each other in opposite directions.

The weekend passed as icily as Friday night, with the two in muted hatred at each other. Kagome went shopping, Inuyasha stood dutifully on the side, no snide remarks. She even took him to the movies as planned, but got dragged down by the double negative in the atmosphere.

Monday came around with almost explicit relief: she would be lost once again in the chaos of high school society and buried under the masses that was high school homework. Unfortunately, Monday morning also greeted her with another surprise.

"Souta?" She frowned when she came downstairs in her uniform to see her little brother eating breakfast at the big table with her father. She looked to her father in puzzlement.

He returned her look blankly. "I did say he was coming on Friday," was his only answer to her look. He tried to return to the conversation he had been having with his son, but the two siblings' attention were lost, staring at each other.

"Bitch, if you're not coming in the next thirty seconds, I'm going leave without you." Inuyasha had seemingly reverted to his old mood after the week of silence. Some good news had been left for him yesterday by Myoga. He rounded the corner and saw Kagome locked in stare with a boy of about 13 years. He also saw Mr. Higurashi, but he didn't say anything.

"Hey, Kagome!" He called again, almost grabbing her hand. That Mr. Higurashi really freaked him out sometimes, under the scrutinizing eyes of his real employer, it was as if nothing could leave unscathed by his opinion. He snapped his fingers dangerously close to her open eyes when she still didn't respond.

"Huh?—oh, Inuyasha." She bit her lower lip and tore away from her little brother. "Hi."

"Hi?" The hanyou replied with disbelief.

Kagome rolled her eyes. "Not you, idiot. Souta. Hi!" she said with more exuberance. Inuyasha's better mood seemed to have a domino effect on hers as well. Apparently, it worked with Souta, too. The younger boy had turned his attention away from his big sister to her bodyguard.

He slacked his posture and leaned on the chair back. "Nice ears," he remarked, trying to seem older in every way. Kagome sniggered and went forward to give him a hug, the ice broken.

"Hey!" he protested. "I'm thirteen now, girl; give a guy some space."

She pulled away and snorted in an extremely unladylike way. "You and Inuyasha should get along real well." Changing the topic quickly before the said person could respond, she added, "So how long are you going to be staying here?"

"A week or so," he answered.

Kagome nodded. "Kay. You going to go to school?"

"Yeah, but after you. Dad said he could drop me off in the limo!"

She smiled and waved at him. "Okay, then. I'm going to go before Inuyasha leaves without me." She grabbed the hanyou's hand again and pulled him out the door before any old feelings resurfaced at full impact and got into the drivers seat. In all the confusion, Inuyasha didn't even really notice that she had been 'leached on' to him again, as he put it privately.

Inside, Mr. Higurashi frowned. Was it just him or had those two gotten back to normal again? No, that wouldn't do...He would just have to remind his daughter the things the hanyou had read. "Souta, starting tomorrow, Inuyasha and Kagome are going to drop you off at school and pick you up, alright?"

There was my first plot-twist, on the way to stretching out the story. Yes, I've decided to make this circa. 12 chapters instead of 8. You guys better be appreciating this. In other news, I'm going to go on a long camping trip for the July 4th weekend, so no updates until next Wednesday or Thursday. Sorry!

-Vii

P.S. Remember, I'm still looking for judges for http:protege.just-in-dreams.com