Author's Notes: ALL OF NATURE TREMBLES AT MY PASSING!! But only in the mornings before I've had a shower and breakfast to keep me human. I return once again with a new chapter that is both deep and filled with fluff. Like a really comfortable feather bed at that.
A couple of my reviewers mentioned they thought the scene with Miroku singing along to Tom Sawyer was a little cliche, and in hindsight I agree. While writing the scene, I was on a bit of a high from all the praise I was getting, and chapter 6 ended up with flaws in it that I didn't catch until I came down from my self-appreciating high. It seemed like a good idea at the time because I wasn't watching out.
This is far too easy a trap to fall into, and I hope I won't make that mistake again. Since I promised myself not to do revisions until the story was finished, I'll simply have to use future chapters to make the best of my mistakes. What's done is done.
Yes, I know I made both Kagome and Sango a little heartless... Okay, really heartless with perpetual PMS. But I managed to catch myself with Kagome in time and fixed my mistake. Now I have a chance to do the same with Sango before its too late. Don't worry, I'll give a (hopefully) good explanation for their behaviour.
Mistakes were made, I'll admit, but at least I've learned from them. After realizing how cliche some of the scenes in the story were, I thought ahead and started to alter, tweak, even scrap ideas I had for the future because I was able to see they too would have been mistakes.
Hopefully, this means that Let the Music Be Your Master will turn out for the best.
Thank you.
Couple last notes. Spada Ken suggested a Yura/Naraku pairing. Hmm... Never thought of that. Wonder if I could make it work. When I created my Soul Calibur story Kidred Spirits, I shot for originality with a Siegfried/Taki pairing, and although I consider it one of my most cliched and flawed works of all time, people still liked it. Maybe...
Also, I'd love to talk with some of you by e-mail, but you'll have to be patient. I just started a new job and besides that I'm very lazy at responding to messages.
New job also means slower updates. They're swamped and desperate for help so I'll be working long hours for a couple weeks. And the first two weeks of April I'll be out of the country, so you'll all just have to be patient.
Let The Music Be Your Master
Chapter 7: Not That You Knew Me Back Then
The few seconds it took for Kirara and Shippo to break the vacuum seal on their lips seemed like hours to Sango. She was aware of a suddenly tense Kagome beside her, but her attention was really on a very apprehensive Miroku. She saw something familiar in his eyes, but she couldn't place it, giving her the strangest feeling of deja vu. Then it hit her: fear. That was fear in his eyes. Not fear of pain or physical punishment, but of mental and emotional punishment. He was more afraid of what she would say than what she would do. Was she really that abusive? Sango remembered seeing that look in his eyes several times before. Not often, but it had been there. Always when she was preparing to give him a tongue-lashing he would never forget.
'Okay,' she thought, 'so maybe he does still have emotions under that blank look.' Sango was beginning to wish she was anywhere but here. She never imagined she was doing Miroku any kind of damage when she yelled at him or smacked him around. But that was probably because she was too busy being pissed off to think about it. Now that Sango was the one who was scared of him, was the one trying to figure out what he was thinking and what he would do next, she saw for the first time just how much he was afraid of this encounter.
'Great. I probably wouldn't have thought of this if Kirara hadn't put that doubt in my head the other day. If she hadn't said all that stuff, I could go on happily not caring.' Sango knew this wasn't true. She knew she would rather have found out about this than remain ignorant the rest of her life and continuing to abuse Miroku gratuitously.
*******************************
Kagome saw Inuyasha and began to panic. First, Miroku shows that he knows what happened last night, and now she comes face-to-face with the last person on the planet she wants to come into contact with.
Her mind was screaming 'RUN!' but her conscience said otherwise. After all, this was bound to happen sooner or later, wasn't it? She'd have to face Inuyasha at school anyway, and it would be better to try and get it overwith now than wait until she had to talk to him in class.
All Kagome had to do was get him alone for a minute and... get him alone for a minute with his friends around and... get him alone for a minute with his friends around in a public place and... 'Okay, this is going to be harder than I thought,' she said silently.
*******************************
Miroku was panicking inside. He really had no desire to go through another encounter with Sango so soon after he had dropped a message to her about his feelings that was about as subtle as a bulldozer. Now what?
He began thinking of an escape, but only drew a blank. Sango just stared at him, and those eyes he could not tear himself away from just stayed still as they scanned him. It was like waiting for a tiger to pounce. You didn't dare move for fear of provoking it, but it was just going to lunge any second now anyway, wasn't it?
'How did I get into this?' If there had been a wall close enough, Miroku was fairly certain he would now be banging his head against it, though whether out of panic and frustration or an attempt to knock himself out and escape this little fiasco, he wasn't certain.
*******************************
'Damn it, damn it, son of a bitch! Damn it, damn it, son of a bitch!' Inuyasha kept this little inner mantra up a few times before changing to a new one. 'I'm screwed, I'm screwed, I'm oh so incredibly screwed beyond human comprehension.' When that became too much of a pain to keep repeating, he silenced his inner monologue and started thinking of what he should do next.
It was hard to think, though, with those beautiful grey eyes staring at him... 'Okay, fine, I admit it! I like her eyes!' Those eyes had been his favorite thing about her physically back when he still had his crush on her. But this was hardly a time to be thinking about that.
Inuyasha shook his head slightly to clear it and once again scrambled for something to break the ice with. His mind, however, was completely blank. 'Stupid brain!'
*******************************
Shippo slowly broke away from the kiss when the need for air over-rode his hormones. For a while, a smiling and somewhat breathless Kirara was the only thing he saw and he was well aware that he must have had one very silly-looking grin on his lips. How had this girl managed to make him fall for her this far, this fast? Oh well. Shippo sure as hell wasn't about to complain.
He noticed, however, that there was a certain tension in the atmosphere. He and Kirara looked up to see Inuyasha and Miroku staring intently, and rather anxiously, at Kagome and Sango respectively. Also, the two girls had similar looks as they stared back at the boys.
"Oh dear," Kirara said softly. "Looks like it's up to us to break this up, sweetling."
Shippo couldn't keep the grin off his at the little pet name Kirara had given him, but kept his wits for the time being, knowing this was important. "You take Kagome and Sango, I'll handle Inuyasha and Miroku."
"Agreed. Meet back here in fifteen minutes then follow my lead." At that, she slipped out of his arms and gave him a wink before walking up to the girls. "Kagome! Sango! Hi!"
Shippo chuckled softly, feeling lucky to have such a wonderful girl in his life. He nonchalantly strolled up to the boys and chuckled at their intense focus on the subjects of their attention. "Hey, guys. Got a minute?"
At that, Inuyasha and Miroku snapped out of their trance and looked at Shippo as if he had just grown a new head. "I'll take that as a yes," Shippo remarked and draped his arms over the shoulders of his two friends, no easy feat given his height in comparison to theirs. "Come with me, and you may find your luck beginning to change."
Shippo couldn't help but grin at the confused looks his friends gave him as he steered them out of the arcade and toward the boardwalk just past the mall. Of course, Kirara was already leading the girls away in another direction, so it wasn't as if they had a choice but to follow Shippo.
*******************************
Kirara led the girls by their wrists out of the arcade and toward a garden facing the beach. There were advantages to having a psychologist for a father. She knew rather well what was going on. Kagome and Sango were reconsidering their views on Inuyasha and Miroku. She wasn't quite sure how it had happened, but she intended to find out.
One thing anyone who knew Kirara had to remember was that she was very observant, and very intelligent. She had already discovered the boys' secret band. It really wasn't that hard to figure out, what with their obsession with music coupled with the fact they always seemed to be at Inuyasha's house for several hours every day. And besides that, she had noticed Shippo's arms and shoulders were very well-toned, and had noticed the thick callusses on Inuyasha and Miroku's fingertips the first time she shook hands with them. Put it all together and it was pretty obvious what they were up to.
Right now, however, she was intent on getting these two girls, whose only flaw was their short-sightedness, to see what had been staring them in the face all these years (and just a minute ago, literally). "So, what happened between you and the boys?" Subtlety be damned. Kirara wanted answers, and she was going to get them one way or another.
Kagome and Sango flinched as if they had been slapped. They looked to each other in desperation, obviously wishing they could run. Kirara put an expression on her face, however, that clearly told them that if they backed away now, she would never let them hear the end of it.
Kagome swallowed audibly and wrung her hands. "Do you promise not to tell anyone else what I'm about to tell you?" If you're going to be coerced into talking, might as well know who's going to hear it. Human beings always took some small degree of comfort in knowing this sort of thing.
"I promise. Not a word of this passes my lips, though I think there are others who need to hear it more than me."
Kagome stalled another moment, staring at the ground. She slowly began to retell the story of last night. How she had complained and yelled about how unbearable it would be to have to spend an evening with Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru, both of whom she could not stand. How Sesshoumaru was being perfectly polite, even if he still acted a little too regal. How Inuyasha was so nice to Sota and didn't say or do anything rude or inappropriate all night. She retold the little performance Inuyasha gave on his guitar. And finally, Kagome told Kirara about how he was being so nice at the end of the night, actually saying her name and smiling at her.
As previously mentioned, Kirara was very sharp, very observant, and very intelligent. However, she would need to carefully dig a little more to see if her theory was right. This would require a lot of gentle probing and a fair amount of tact. "You feel pretty guilty about these last few years, don't you?" Okay, maybe tact was over-rated.
Kagome nodded sadly, clearly not at all pleased with even admitting it to herself, much less Kirara. "Yeah. I can't understand why he would be so nice to me after all I've done to him."
Now it was time to figrue out how all this started. "Just why did you treat him like you did, anyway? How did this whole thing start?"
"I'm not sure," Kagome admitted. "I remember that before third grade, I just really didn't care. People always pushed him around, but it wasn't my problem."
Kirara was beginning to get an idea. "You didn't want to hurt him, but at the same time, you were afraid to stand up for him against the others, am I right?"
There was a pause as the three girls took a seat on a nearby bench. "I guess so," Kagome finally answered.
'Good,' Kirara thought. 'Now we're getting somewhere.' She carefully thought about what she should say next. "When did things between you two go sour?"
"I think it was about third grade. He stopped coming to school for about a month and no one heard from him. Now that I think about it, he seemed really different when he came back. It was like a part of him was destroyed. I just found out about a week ago that he missed all that school because his mother died and he just couldn't stand losing her. When people started pushing him around again, he started fighting back."
"Inuyasha seems to have gotten preternatural strength and speed from his birth defect. A trade-off for the social stigma, it seems. I imagine getting in a fight with him must be brutal." Kirara folded her arms over her chest. She had to be patient.
Kagome nodded. "I've seen him fight before. You don't stand a chance. It didn't stop people from trying though. I guess I got kind of... scared of him."
******************************
Kagome felt like her insides were twisting into knots. Why hadn't she thought of any of this before? She just took her dislike for Inuyasha for granted and never stopped to consider why she shunned him. Kikyo was right. Kagome had been trying too hard to avoid him when he had done nothing. To her at least.
"So you turned away from him out of fear?" Kirara asked gently.
"No, not really," Kagome said trying to keep her voice steady. "I guess it just made me keep my distance. Come to think of it, I don't think Inuyasha ever once laid a finger on a girl. He actually seemed pretty nervous around us. I guess it was kind of silly to be so afraid of him." The guilt returned with a vengeance. Why, oh why, in the name of all things sacred and holy did guilt have to feel this bad? It was the worst emotion ever!
"Then why did you start treating him so badly?" The girl was persistent if nothing else.
Kagome tried to gather her thoughts again. "I remember back in fifth grade I had this crush on a boy in my class. He played baseball, hung out with the popular kids, and practically had a fan club. I tried to get his attention but nothing worked. One day he was calling me names and teasing me... I got so upset that I broke down and cried. I felt so heartbroken that he could be so mean to me. And for no reason!
"Then Inuyasha came up and started threatening him, yelling at him for making me cry. I'd never seen him so ticked before, I thought he was going to rip the boy open right there! The problem wass, I still felt like I should defend my crush and I started yelling at Inuyasha. I told him to stay away and keep out of my business."
Sango then looked up from staring at her lap. "That's when Miroku came to Inuyasha's defense and I came to tell them both off."
Kirara nodded as if she held a wisdom beyond her years. "Kagome, you have a talent for over-looking the obvious."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Kagome huffed. Just what did she mean by 'overlooking the obvious?'
"I mean that Inuyasha had a crush on you," Kirara said simply.
Kagome felt her heart skip a beat. Inuyasha had a crush on her? Is that why he came to her defense when no one else would? She thought back to her memories of that day and could now clearly remember the look on his face when she and Sango stormed out. He looked like a kicked puppy, like she had just done something unbelievably cruel to him. "No way," she whispered.
"You have to admit, it makes perfect sense," Kirara insisted. "Why else would he stand up for you when he had never done anything like that for anyone else before? Do you remember how he acted after you yelled at him?"
Kagome swallowed audibly. She was learning more about herself and Inuyasha in about a week than she had in all the time they had known each other before that. "Sort of," she half-lied.
"Did he look upset, angry, crushed, what?"
Kagome hesitated to answer. But Kirara would not stop staring at her, waiting for an answer. The girl was like a cat waiting for the mouse. "Crushed," Kagome mumbled.
"You see?" Kirara said it as more of a statement than a question. She had a tone as if she were saying the sky was blue. "What happened from there?"
"Well..." Kagome tried to organize the events after her first fight with Inuyasha and see where things continued going downhill. "After that I was pretty mad at him. I started joining the other kids in calling him names to get even. But after that they started being my friends so I kept up the act. In middle school I met Koga who was on the track team and he started hanging out with us. He was always crueler to Inuyasha than the rest of us, and Inuyasha hated him with a passion. Still does.
"Inuyasha started acting violent again when we got to high school and sent two boys to the hospital with broken bones. Ever since then, every time he saw me it was like he was waiting for me to bite his head off. I think he stopped trusting everyone but Miroku, Naraku, and his brother." It was then Kagome had a strangely enlightened moment. "Almost like he didn't want to risk trusting anyone else. He didn't want to get close because he was afraid of being hurt after his mother died and I started being mean to him. So he started acting like the animal we always told him he was."
Kagome looked to Sango and Kirara, stunned at this revelation. Sango had a shocked look on her face that showed she was thinking the same thing. Kirara simply nodded and looked to Kagome with a look in her eyes that seemed to say 'Now you get it.' Kagome felt an incredible rush of regret and guilt. It took her this long to figure this out?
As if she could read minds, Kirara shook her head. "You never thought about it enough to make the connection," she said softly. "We all make mistakes. What I want to know, is why you let yourself continue to treat him so poorly when it was obviously no longer necessary."
With her newfound wisdom, Kagome found the question much easier to answer now. "I guess it was because I convinced myself I hated him like everybody else. I never actually thought that..."
"I see." Kirara placed a comforting hand on Kagome's shoulder. "You know what this means you'll have to do, don't you?"
Kagome nodded. She would have to apologize, and this time for real. She owed the poor boy that much. "I better go find him." It was barely audible, but Kagome knew they would know.
Kirara then turned to Sango as Kagome stood up and walked off. She heard them talking for a moment before their voices faded into the distance. "Are you ready to talk now? Kagome's figured things out, and now its for the best that you do, too. So, just how did things end up so bad between you and Miroku?"
******************************
Meanwhile, Shippo wasn't having nearly as much luck. He was trying to get some answers out of Inuyasha, but he was being stubborn as an ox and refused to talk. "No!"
"Come on, why don't you just tell me what's bugging you so much about this?" Shippo stepped in front of Inuyasha again as the silver-haired boy tried to get away again.
"Don't make me step on you!" Inuyasha growled. "I told you it's nothing!"
"If it's nothing, then why are you being so defensive?"
"I'm not being defensive!"
"Then just tell me!"
"No fuckin' way!"
"Act your age, damn it!"
"Fuck off, half-pint!"
"If you don't tell me, I promise to make the next two months for you just as excruciatingly obnoxious as this moment right here!"
That got his attention. Shippo felt a sense of satisfaction in the brief look of horror that crossed Inuyasha's face before he replaced it with a scowl. "Fine!"
"Good! Now cough it up. I want to know just what about Kagome has your cage so rattled." Shippo folded his arms over his chest and stared intently at Inuyasha. He hoped Miroku wouldn't be as big a baby about this when it was his turn.
"I guess... I guess that... Well, I... Argh! I don't know!" Inuyasha threw his hands up in the air in frustration. Shippo should have known that this was going to be difficult. Not only was Inuyasha often very tight-lipped about his feelings, but he was terrible at expressing himself through any medium other than music.
Shippo growled softly in frustration as Inuyasha turned up the volume on his headphones. This guy was impossible! "I'm waiting!"
"I thought she hated me, okay!" Inuyasha finally shouted. "You and Miroku both know I liked her back in fifth grade and she just spat in my face. She didn't even feel guilty about it! She starts hanging out with my worst enemies, including that Koga bastard, and she just keeps on trying to rip any sense of self-respect I have to shreds. Is it any wonder I turned out as fucked up as I am?!" (AN: Three guesses what song he's listening to.)
Well that did it. He was on a roll now. Inuyasha was always on some kind of an extreme. He was now an avalanche, rushing down the mountainside with no sign of stopping, crushing anything that dared interrupt him. "I'll admit it, I can be jerk-off! I'm a total prick half the time, I know! But what the hell do you people expect from me?!" It was a good thing the boardwalk was deserted and there was no one within earshot. "I'm not going to fuckin' stand by and let those bastards push me around! And Kagome...!"
He paused as if he had no idea how to continue. "She's the worst of all," he finally said, this time lowering his voice to normal. "I never did anything to her, I actually tried to defend her once! And she hates my guts, anyway. Now she's being nice to me, and I just don't know what to think anymore."
"Pretty rough, isn't it?" There had to be more. Shippo just had to figure out how to pry it out.
"That's an understatement," Inuyasha snarled. "What does she want from me? One day she's the bitch queen, then the same day she apologizes, then the next day she's right back where we started, and now she's turned nice again. It's like she's a friggin' schizo! I'm not even sure I'm talking to the same person anymore!"
"Why does this bug you so much?" Shippo was getting impatient. This was good progress, but it wasn't what he was looking for.
"I don't know," Inuyasha snapped. "Something about Kagome just... I can't..." The anger and frustration slowly drifted out of his voice to be replaced by confusion and despair. "The way she treats me... I should hate her. But I don't. I don't know how I feel anymore, I just know that I don't hate her. I've been telling myself I do for the past five years, but I just can't make myself believe it." Inuyasha rested his arms on the wooden railing of the boardwalk and buried his face in them.
"I don't know, but I actually do care what she thinks." His voice was muffled but still audible. "I figured that much out last night. I actually care about whether or not she hates me."
Shippo put his hand on Inuyasha's shoulder in an attempt to comfort him. "What do you plan to do?"
"I don't know." Inuyasha seemed to relax slightly.
******************************
Kagome wandered aimlessly around the mall for a while, trying to spot Inuyasha among the thin crowd. He should be easy to find, shouldn't he?
After a minute or two, Kagome heard faint noises that sounded like shouting. She was always a very curious girl, and this was no exception. She followed the indistinct shouting, wondering just who was yelling and why. She peered around a corner and saw the boardwalk. Thought it was far away, she recognized the three figures standing alone. Miroku was leaning up against the rail and appeared to be fiddling with his beads again. Shippo seemed to be trying to comfort Inuyasha who had his arms on the railing and his face buried in them.
It was now or never. Taking a deep breath for courage, Kagome strode quickly to the boardwalk, clearing her throat to draw the boys' attention. All three looked up at her in surprise and Inuyasha's face went beat red. "Inuyasha," she started shakily, "can I talk to you for a minute?"
"S-sure." He stuttered.
Kagome glanced at Miroku and Shippo for a second. If they could hear, there was no way this would get done. "Alone? Please."
Inuyasha looked at his friends for a moment and nodded. He strode up to Kagome, who took his arm and lead him off down to the beach. She continued glancing over her shoulder until she was certain that Miroku and Shippo were out of ear shot and stopped. She took a few more deep breaths for courage and looked up at Inuyasha who seemed both nervous and confused.
"You wanted to talk to me?" It sounded desperate, nervous. Not that Kagome could blame him. If she were in his shoes, she would be scared out of her mind, too.
"I... I had a talk with Kirara..." Kagome mentally kicked herself. That was certainly a great way to start and relieve the poor boy of a little bit of terror. "I realize I've done and said a lot of things... mostly about you... that I'm not too proud of..."
"Kagome?" Now Inuyasha looked hopelessly lost. Damn! Why couldn't this be easier?
Kagome decided to just swallow her pride and let it all out. In one big rush. "I'm so sorry, Inuyasha! I've been treating you like trash all these years and you never did anything to deserve it! And now that I figured that out, I feel like I'm going to die if I don't do something about it, but if you can't forgive me I understand completely, I just needed to get this off my chest before it drives me insane! Oh god, I'm so, so sorry!" Well, that was a little less than dignified. Now what?
******************************
Inuyasha stood mute with shock for a moment. Kagome had just poured out the most sincere apology he'd ever heard from anyone in his entire life and confessed that she now realized she'd been a bitch to him all these years. When did this happen? Still, don't look a gift horse in the mouth, father always said.
The silence might have gone on a little too long, however, because Inuyasha heard Kagome give a gentle sob and the salty scent of tears filled his sensitive nose. Oh great! She took his silence for a rejection of her apology. When Kagome turned her back to escape, Inuyasha darted his hand out and caught her arm. "Wait a second! Kagome, it's okay! I accept!"
The girl struggled for a second before his words sunk in and she looked up at him in shock. Inuyasha gently brushed the tears from the corners of her eyes as she stared at him. "How can you forgive me so easily? After all I've done to you..."
Inuyasha gave her a rare smile. "When you live on my side of the tracks as long as I have, you don't take apologies for granted. It's okay. You're sorry for the differences we've had in the past, and that's all that matters. As long as you don't start doing it again, it's fine."
Kagome just looked down at the ground, obviously still having a hard time accepting the fact that she was so easily forgiven. She must have had one powerful guilt trip to be affected this strongly.
Inuyasha decided to try and console her again. What else was there to do? "I tend to hold a grudge, but my mother always taught me to be more forgiving. Don't worry about it. It's all in the past now."
Kagome finally looked up at him and smiled softly. "Thanks, Inuyasha. People are wrong about you. I was wrong about you."
******************************
Kagome thought that could have gone a little better, but it worked out in the end, anyway. When Inuyasha didn't respond to her apology at first, she was ready to break down and cry. Not that she could have blamed him if he didn't forgive her. She had played a major role in ruining his teenage life, and then just came in with an impromptu apology.
But, he had accepted, and he was starting to show that nice-guy side to him from last night. People really were wrong about him. Kagome felt indescribably relieved and now felt a certain amdiration for the silver-haired boy in front of her.
She straightened herself up and wiped at her eyes again. She could still remember how surprisingly gentle his callused fingers had been when he brushed her tears away. She smiled up at Inuyasha and felt a strange impulse take hold of her. "Would you and Sesshoumaru like to come over to my house for dinner sometime?"
Inuyasha looked as if she had just asked him to marry her. "What?" was his meek reply.
"Well, we had dinner at your house once before. I thought you and your brother might like to come to my family's home next time."
Inuyasha idly scratched at the back of his head, triangular ears twitching slightly. "I guess so. I could talk to Sessh about it tonight. He does seem to get along well with your mom and grandfather." He shrugged slightly as if unsure of his own observation.
Kagome just giggled. "Not to mention how he gets along with Kikyo."
Inuyasha just raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"
Kagome rolled her eyes playfully and giggled again. "Didn't you see the way they were looking at each other last night? They way they kept talking? Those two have got it bad." It was still a little wierd to think of those two together, but they really did make a cute couple.
Inuyasha looked thoughtful for a moment then grinned and began chuckling himself. "Now that I think about it, you're right. I can't believe I didn't notice before. Kikyo looked like she was ready to jump Sessh the instant they were alone, and he looked as if he wouldn't have made any move to stop her either."
It was actually a very comfortable moment they shared. For once in their lives, they were getting along and all the past seemed to be behind them now.
Unfortunately all good things must come to an end. "What the fuck do you think you're doing with MY girl, mongrel!?"
*******************************
Back at the garden, Kirara's persistent prying was finally starting to get results. "Okay, okay! I first met Miroku when we were only five. It was at a daycare center." Sango would tell the story, but she doubted there was anything more to it than what she had seen these past thirteen years.
"What happened?"
"Well, like a couple other boys, he started showing off around me and trying to impress me." Sango had to admit that looking back it looked very cute. But that was beside the point. "He would always try to be nice and would stick up for me when boys teased me about being a girl. Stuff like that."
"That was sweet of him," Kirara remarked.
"Maybe, but that's only because he was too little to know what sex was." Sango folded her arms over her chest with a huff.
"That was a little below the belt, don't you think?"
With a sigh, Sango admitted that that was a pretty cold thing to say. Nor was it really fair to Miroku or even guys in general. "Maybe, but that's not important. Anyway, I got kind of tired of all the attention I was getting after a while so I was kind of relieved when my parents took me out of daycare.
"The next time I saw Miroku was when we got put in the same class in third grade. I was homeschooled until then. Well, apparently Miroku hadn't forgotten me because he picked up right where he left off. He kept it up until fifth grade, despite the fact that I never once showed any sign of interest. He just couldn't take a hint."
"Maybe you did too good a job ignoring him," Kirara said thoughtfully.
Sango looked over at the blonde girl in confusion. "What do you mean?"
"Nevermind. Go on with your story."
Sango gave Kirara a questioning look, but shrugged off her curiosity and cleared her throat. "Anyway, Kagome told you about the incident with Inuyasha and Miroku. As we were leaving, I decided I had had enough of Miroku stalking me so I told him to quit following me. I even told him I hated him, just to get him off my back. Truthfully, his persistence was starting to scare me.
"After that he turned really wierd. Started dressing all in black, got this creepy mystic thing going, started wearing that coat... I can't remember just how it started, but in seventh grade he started acting like such a pervert. He couldn't go three sentences without dropping some innuendo in, and he always claimed those times he groped women were just accidents. He certainly went out of his way to make them seem that way."
"Miroku used a lot of innuendo," Kirara remarked casually. "So does my brother-in-law. But he's perfectly normal otherwise. All guys like to make suggestive comments, its their nature."
Sango just crossed her arms. She was determined to win this argument. Miroku was a lying pervert, and that's all there was to it.
"Also," Kirara added, "did you ever stop to think about the possibility that those really were accidents?"
Sango growled softly. "Why would he say something like that unless it was a lie? He wants people to believe they were accidents so they can keep on getting away with it."
"Sango, I can't help but feel you're blowing this out of proportion." Kirara rubbed her temples slightly in frustration.
"I am not!" Sango defended. "He has walked up to any woman that gives him so much as a hello smile and asks them to bear his children!" That was one thing in particular that really bugged her. Every time she heard Miroku say that, she rushed over and helped his victim smack him around.
"Did he ever ask you?" Kirara may as well have been asking about the weather. How could she always sound so damn mellow?!
"No," Sango admitted, "but that's only because he has a self-preservation instinct." She cracked her knuckles to emphasize the point she was trying to make. "But he did have the nerve to actually say to me not more than a half-hour ago why I couldn't treat him like a human."
"Would you like to hear a little theory of mine?" Kirara asked calmly.
"Go ahead." At least it gave Sango an excuse to not go on about this unpleasant subject.
"I think Miroku is both fascinated by you and afraid of you," Kirara began. "Guys are stubborn when it comes to women. They don't like to give up. It's possible that Miroku genuinely has some feelings for you, but you've succeeded in scaring him away. At least to an extent, you have."
Sango sat numb with shock. How could Kirara even think something like that. But she wasn't finished.
"Think about it. Hear me out. He spent two years of his life trying to catch your attention, trying to show you that he did in fact exist. That's devotion. When you threw it back in his face, he immediately afterward turned semi-goth and soon afterward developed a reputation that scares women away from him. Sounds like he has a hard time with rejection."
"So?" Sango wasn't convinced yet. So Miroku didn't take rejection well. So he couldn't let go of the past. Big deal. Though if he couldn't let go of his feelings of rejection, was it possible he couldn't let go of that crush on her? Oh god, there it goes again. Kirara was exceedingly good at making you question yourself.
"I think the whole thing with asking women to bear his children is an attempt to scare them off," Kirara continued. "It's possible that he never got over you, that he doesn't want anybody else. Granted, that isn't really mentally healthy, but in some strange way it's kind of... sweet."
Sango was now beginning to doubt all of her views on Miroku. The poor guy had never done anything to her personally. And everytime he did something for her, she just started snapping at him. He wasn't a stalker, he was just a guy who refused to give up until he had tried everything.
Now it was Sango's turn to feel a massive guilt trip. He wanted her to treat him like a human. He had every right to say that. It had gotten so easy to believe she hated him, that she never stopped to consider why. 'Now I know how Kagome feels.'
Maybe Miroku was lying about the groping being accidents, maybe he was lying about all those awkward situations they had been in together, maybe he was lying about the snake, and maybe he was lying whenever he complimented her and no other girl. And maybe he wasn't. Miroku had never asked Sango to bear his children, but was it out of fear or was it because he didn't want to offend her?
"Confusing, isn't it?" Kirara asked. "You obviously need some more time to think about this. Your situation with Miroku isn't as clear as the Kagome and Inuyasha's." With that, Kirara stood up and walked off. "Just remember what I said and think about it."
Sango sighed in despair. This was not going to be easy. If Miroku really was innocent, then she was going to owe him one hell of an apology. For now, though, she would have to wait and see. Continue testing the waters, as it were.
******************************
Miroku was very, very interested in finding out what was going on between Inuyasha and Kagome, but he felt he should respect the latter's request for privacy. Besides, Shippo turned his attention to Miroku now, and was planning on doing to him what he had done with Inuyasha.
"I don't think you ever told me just how you and Sango got where you are today," Shippo mused. "Care to tell?"
Miroku sighed and retold his story to Shippo. Unlike others, Miroku knew exactly what his problem was. He was able to explain why he did what he did, what steps he had taken to keep other women away, how those steps had backfired miserably. In short, everything.
When Miroku finished, Shippo sat there calmly watching him. "And today you sent her that cryptic little message in hopes that it would start turning the wheels in her head?"
"Exactly." Miroku folded his arms over his chest and sighed.
"Why don't you just tell her outright how you feel?" Shippo obviously wanted to get every scrap of information and eliminate all other possible explanations until he got to the core truth.
"Because I don't want to die," Miroku asnwered flatly.
"So you're afraid of getting your ass kicked?"
"Yes and no. I am afraid of what kind of physical harm she can do. Remember, her family runs a martial arts school and shop. She's probably the school's best fighter after Inuyasha.
"I'm also afraid, however, of what she could do to me emotionally if I did something that stupid. You don't just walk up to a woman and say 'Hey! I've been in love with you for thirteen years and have been expressing it in the most disfunctional ways imaginable the whole time! You wanna go out sometime?' I like having skin on my bones and my heart in a semblence of one piece, thank you very much." Miroku settled back, rather proud of his answer.
Shippo was a sly one, though. "So you're just going to keep up the not-working-out-because-it-sucks routine and let her get away? Face it, dude, you don't have much time left."
Damn. He was good. Much as Miroku hated to admit it, he had just lost this argument. Now he needed to undo ten years of damage to his relationship with Sango in about 6 months. This was going to be hard.
******************************
"Koga?!" Kagome and Inuyasha both shouted at once. "What the...?" Kagome didn't get a chance to finish that sentence when Koga stomped up and roughly jerked her away from a stunned Inuyasha.
"Keep your filthy paws off my girl!" he screamed indignantly. "Fuckin' rapist!"
"Rapist?!" Inuyasha shouted, clearly offended. He was about to shout back at Koga when Kagome jerked her arm free from the dark-haired boy's grasp and slapped him.
"I am not your girl! Where the hell did you get an idea like that? And Inuyasha is not the problem here!" Koga kept opening his mouth to try and speak, but Kagome wasn't about to let him. No one interrupted her. No one. "We were having a conversation when you barged in and interrupted it! And just what gives you the right to grab me like that! I should be screaming rape at you after you almost pulled my arm out of the socket! Well?! What do you have to say for yourself?!"
Nothing apparently. Koga and Inuyasha both stood staring at her in shock, though Inuyasha slowly started to seem very amused.
Koga shook off his shock after a while and scowled at Inuyasha who glowered back. Koga took Kagome by the shoulder and strode off, leaving a seething Inuyasha standing on the beach.
Kagome tried to struggle, but she wasn't strong enough to break free. "What the hell do you want?" she fumed.
"I just wanted to invite you to my party, bitch," Koga huffed. "My folks are out of town for the next week and I'm throwing a big-ass party and you're invited. Tomorrow at 7. I expect to see you there." The last sentence seemed to hold a dark tone to it, as if suggesting something would happen if she didn't come.
As Koga strode away, now looking very pleased with himself, Kagome had to wonder just why she ever allowed him within a hundred yards of her. He was beginning to get scary. And he never did explain himself about the whole 'my girl' thing.
Suddenly, Kagome got an idea. She knew just how she could do a favor for Inuyasha and herself. With a sinister smile, she walked back to the beach, relieved to find Inuyasha still standing there waiting for her.
"What's with the look?" he asked, obviously a little nervous at the uncharacteristically dark cast to her features.
"Inuyasha," she said sweetly, "how would you, Miroku, Shippo and Kirara like to come with me to Koga's party? Every party needs its crashers, doesn't it?"
After a moment, Inuyasha took on a very evil grin himself. "Count on it. And since you invited us, he can't really bitch, can he?"
One of Kagome's teachers had assigned them to read a book called Stranger In a Strange Land a couple weeks ago. One thing the book said was that all humor is based on the misfortune and suffering of others. And right now, Kagome was feeling very, very funny.
A couple of my reviewers mentioned they thought the scene with Miroku singing along to Tom Sawyer was a little cliche, and in hindsight I agree. While writing the scene, I was on a bit of a high from all the praise I was getting, and chapter 6 ended up with flaws in it that I didn't catch until I came down from my self-appreciating high. It seemed like a good idea at the time because I wasn't watching out.
This is far too easy a trap to fall into, and I hope I won't make that mistake again. Since I promised myself not to do revisions until the story was finished, I'll simply have to use future chapters to make the best of my mistakes. What's done is done.
Yes, I know I made both Kagome and Sango a little heartless... Okay, really heartless with perpetual PMS. But I managed to catch myself with Kagome in time and fixed my mistake. Now I have a chance to do the same with Sango before its too late. Don't worry, I'll give a (hopefully) good explanation for their behaviour.
Mistakes were made, I'll admit, but at least I've learned from them. After realizing how cliche some of the scenes in the story were, I thought ahead and started to alter, tweak, even scrap ideas I had for the future because I was able to see they too would have been mistakes.
Hopefully, this means that Let the Music Be Your Master will turn out for the best.
Thank you.
Couple last notes. Spada Ken suggested a Yura/Naraku pairing. Hmm... Never thought of that. Wonder if I could make it work. When I created my Soul Calibur story Kidred Spirits, I shot for originality with a Siegfried/Taki pairing, and although I consider it one of my most cliched and flawed works of all time, people still liked it. Maybe...
Also, I'd love to talk with some of you by e-mail, but you'll have to be patient. I just started a new job and besides that I'm very lazy at responding to messages.
New job also means slower updates. They're swamped and desperate for help so I'll be working long hours for a couple weeks. And the first two weeks of April I'll be out of the country, so you'll all just have to be patient.
Let The Music Be Your Master
Chapter 7: Not That You Knew Me Back Then
The few seconds it took for Kirara and Shippo to break the vacuum seal on their lips seemed like hours to Sango. She was aware of a suddenly tense Kagome beside her, but her attention was really on a very apprehensive Miroku. She saw something familiar in his eyes, but she couldn't place it, giving her the strangest feeling of deja vu. Then it hit her: fear. That was fear in his eyes. Not fear of pain or physical punishment, but of mental and emotional punishment. He was more afraid of what she would say than what she would do. Was she really that abusive? Sango remembered seeing that look in his eyes several times before. Not often, but it had been there. Always when she was preparing to give him a tongue-lashing he would never forget.
'Okay,' she thought, 'so maybe he does still have emotions under that blank look.' Sango was beginning to wish she was anywhere but here. She never imagined she was doing Miroku any kind of damage when she yelled at him or smacked him around. But that was probably because she was too busy being pissed off to think about it. Now that Sango was the one who was scared of him, was the one trying to figure out what he was thinking and what he would do next, she saw for the first time just how much he was afraid of this encounter.
'Great. I probably wouldn't have thought of this if Kirara hadn't put that doubt in my head the other day. If she hadn't said all that stuff, I could go on happily not caring.' Sango knew this wasn't true. She knew she would rather have found out about this than remain ignorant the rest of her life and continuing to abuse Miroku gratuitously.
*******************************
Kagome saw Inuyasha and began to panic. First, Miroku shows that he knows what happened last night, and now she comes face-to-face with the last person on the planet she wants to come into contact with.
Her mind was screaming 'RUN!' but her conscience said otherwise. After all, this was bound to happen sooner or later, wasn't it? She'd have to face Inuyasha at school anyway, and it would be better to try and get it overwith now than wait until she had to talk to him in class.
All Kagome had to do was get him alone for a minute and... get him alone for a minute with his friends around and... get him alone for a minute with his friends around in a public place and... 'Okay, this is going to be harder than I thought,' she said silently.
*******************************
Miroku was panicking inside. He really had no desire to go through another encounter with Sango so soon after he had dropped a message to her about his feelings that was about as subtle as a bulldozer. Now what?
He began thinking of an escape, but only drew a blank. Sango just stared at him, and those eyes he could not tear himself away from just stayed still as they scanned him. It was like waiting for a tiger to pounce. You didn't dare move for fear of provoking it, but it was just going to lunge any second now anyway, wasn't it?
'How did I get into this?' If there had been a wall close enough, Miroku was fairly certain he would now be banging his head against it, though whether out of panic and frustration or an attempt to knock himself out and escape this little fiasco, he wasn't certain.
*******************************
'Damn it, damn it, son of a bitch! Damn it, damn it, son of a bitch!' Inuyasha kept this little inner mantra up a few times before changing to a new one. 'I'm screwed, I'm screwed, I'm oh so incredibly screwed beyond human comprehension.' When that became too much of a pain to keep repeating, he silenced his inner monologue and started thinking of what he should do next.
It was hard to think, though, with those beautiful grey eyes staring at him... 'Okay, fine, I admit it! I like her eyes!' Those eyes had been his favorite thing about her physically back when he still had his crush on her. But this was hardly a time to be thinking about that.
Inuyasha shook his head slightly to clear it and once again scrambled for something to break the ice with. His mind, however, was completely blank. 'Stupid brain!'
*******************************
Shippo slowly broke away from the kiss when the need for air over-rode his hormones. For a while, a smiling and somewhat breathless Kirara was the only thing he saw and he was well aware that he must have had one very silly-looking grin on his lips. How had this girl managed to make him fall for her this far, this fast? Oh well. Shippo sure as hell wasn't about to complain.
He noticed, however, that there was a certain tension in the atmosphere. He and Kirara looked up to see Inuyasha and Miroku staring intently, and rather anxiously, at Kagome and Sango respectively. Also, the two girls had similar looks as they stared back at the boys.
"Oh dear," Kirara said softly. "Looks like it's up to us to break this up, sweetling."
Shippo couldn't keep the grin off his at the little pet name Kirara had given him, but kept his wits for the time being, knowing this was important. "You take Kagome and Sango, I'll handle Inuyasha and Miroku."
"Agreed. Meet back here in fifteen minutes then follow my lead." At that, she slipped out of his arms and gave him a wink before walking up to the girls. "Kagome! Sango! Hi!"
Shippo chuckled softly, feeling lucky to have such a wonderful girl in his life. He nonchalantly strolled up to the boys and chuckled at their intense focus on the subjects of their attention. "Hey, guys. Got a minute?"
At that, Inuyasha and Miroku snapped out of their trance and looked at Shippo as if he had just grown a new head. "I'll take that as a yes," Shippo remarked and draped his arms over the shoulders of his two friends, no easy feat given his height in comparison to theirs. "Come with me, and you may find your luck beginning to change."
Shippo couldn't help but grin at the confused looks his friends gave him as he steered them out of the arcade and toward the boardwalk just past the mall. Of course, Kirara was already leading the girls away in another direction, so it wasn't as if they had a choice but to follow Shippo.
*******************************
Kirara led the girls by their wrists out of the arcade and toward a garden facing the beach. There were advantages to having a psychologist for a father. She knew rather well what was going on. Kagome and Sango were reconsidering their views on Inuyasha and Miroku. She wasn't quite sure how it had happened, but she intended to find out.
One thing anyone who knew Kirara had to remember was that she was very observant, and very intelligent. She had already discovered the boys' secret band. It really wasn't that hard to figure out, what with their obsession with music coupled with the fact they always seemed to be at Inuyasha's house for several hours every day. And besides that, she had noticed Shippo's arms and shoulders were very well-toned, and had noticed the thick callusses on Inuyasha and Miroku's fingertips the first time she shook hands with them. Put it all together and it was pretty obvious what they were up to.
Right now, however, she was intent on getting these two girls, whose only flaw was their short-sightedness, to see what had been staring them in the face all these years (and just a minute ago, literally). "So, what happened between you and the boys?" Subtlety be damned. Kirara wanted answers, and she was going to get them one way or another.
Kagome and Sango flinched as if they had been slapped. They looked to each other in desperation, obviously wishing they could run. Kirara put an expression on her face, however, that clearly told them that if they backed away now, she would never let them hear the end of it.
Kagome swallowed audibly and wrung her hands. "Do you promise not to tell anyone else what I'm about to tell you?" If you're going to be coerced into talking, might as well know who's going to hear it. Human beings always took some small degree of comfort in knowing this sort of thing.
"I promise. Not a word of this passes my lips, though I think there are others who need to hear it more than me."
Kagome stalled another moment, staring at the ground. She slowly began to retell the story of last night. How she had complained and yelled about how unbearable it would be to have to spend an evening with Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru, both of whom she could not stand. How Sesshoumaru was being perfectly polite, even if he still acted a little too regal. How Inuyasha was so nice to Sota and didn't say or do anything rude or inappropriate all night. She retold the little performance Inuyasha gave on his guitar. And finally, Kagome told Kirara about how he was being so nice at the end of the night, actually saying her name and smiling at her.
As previously mentioned, Kirara was very sharp, very observant, and very intelligent. However, she would need to carefully dig a little more to see if her theory was right. This would require a lot of gentle probing and a fair amount of tact. "You feel pretty guilty about these last few years, don't you?" Okay, maybe tact was over-rated.
Kagome nodded sadly, clearly not at all pleased with even admitting it to herself, much less Kirara. "Yeah. I can't understand why he would be so nice to me after all I've done to him."
Now it was time to figrue out how all this started. "Just why did you treat him like you did, anyway? How did this whole thing start?"
"I'm not sure," Kagome admitted. "I remember that before third grade, I just really didn't care. People always pushed him around, but it wasn't my problem."
Kirara was beginning to get an idea. "You didn't want to hurt him, but at the same time, you were afraid to stand up for him against the others, am I right?"
There was a pause as the three girls took a seat on a nearby bench. "I guess so," Kagome finally answered.
'Good,' Kirara thought. 'Now we're getting somewhere.' She carefully thought about what she should say next. "When did things between you two go sour?"
"I think it was about third grade. He stopped coming to school for about a month and no one heard from him. Now that I think about it, he seemed really different when he came back. It was like a part of him was destroyed. I just found out about a week ago that he missed all that school because his mother died and he just couldn't stand losing her. When people started pushing him around again, he started fighting back."
"Inuyasha seems to have gotten preternatural strength and speed from his birth defect. A trade-off for the social stigma, it seems. I imagine getting in a fight with him must be brutal." Kirara folded her arms over her chest. She had to be patient.
Kagome nodded. "I've seen him fight before. You don't stand a chance. It didn't stop people from trying though. I guess I got kind of... scared of him."
******************************
Kagome felt like her insides were twisting into knots. Why hadn't she thought of any of this before? She just took her dislike for Inuyasha for granted and never stopped to consider why she shunned him. Kikyo was right. Kagome had been trying too hard to avoid him when he had done nothing. To her at least.
"So you turned away from him out of fear?" Kirara asked gently.
"No, not really," Kagome said trying to keep her voice steady. "I guess it just made me keep my distance. Come to think of it, I don't think Inuyasha ever once laid a finger on a girl. He actually seemed pretty nervous around us. I guess it was kind of silly to be so afraid of him." The guilt returned with a vengeance. Why, oh why, in the name of all things sacred and holy did guilt have to feel this bad? It was the worst emotion ever!
"Then why did you start treating him so badly?" The girl was persistent if nothing else.
Kagome tried to gather her thoughts again. "I remember back in fifth grade I had this crush on a boy in my class. He played baseball, hung out with the popular kids, and practically had a fan club. I tried to get his attention but nothing worked. One day he was calling me names and teasing me... I got so upset that I broke down and cried. I felt so heartbroken that he could be so mean to me. And for no reason!
"Then Inuyasha came up and started threatening him, yelling at him for making me cry. I'd never seen him so ticked before, I thought he was going to rip the boy open right there! The problem wass, I still felt like I should defend my crush and I started yelling at Inuyasha. I told him to stay away and keep out of my business."
Sango then looked up from staring at her lap. "That's when Miroku came to Inuyasha's defense and I came to tell them both off."
Kirara nodded as if she held a wisdom beyond her years. "Kagome, you have a talent for over-looking the obvious."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Kagome huffed. Just what did she mean by 'overlooking the obvious?'
"I mean that Inuyasha had a crush on you," Kirara said simply.
Kagome felt her heart skip a beat. Inuyasha had a crush on her? Is that why he came to her defense when no one else would? She thought back to her memories of that day and could now clearly remember the look on his face when she and Sango stormed out. He looked like a kicked puppy, like she had just done something unbelievably cruel to him. "No way," she whispered.
"You have to admit, it makes perfect sense," Kirara insisted. "Why else would he stand up for you when he had never done anything like that for anyone else before? Do you remember how he acted after you yelled at him?"
Kagome swallowed audibly. She was learning more about herself and Inuyasha in about a week than she had in all the time they had known each other before that. "Sort of," she half-lied.
"Did he look upset, angry, crushed, what?"
Kagome hesitated to answer. But Kirara would not stop staring at her, waiting for an answer. The girl was like a cat waiting for the mouse. "Crushed," Kagome mumbled.
"You see?" Kirara said it as more of a statement than a question. She had a tone as if she were saying the sky was blue. "What happened from there?"
"Well..." Kagome tried to organize the events after her first fight with Inuyasha and see where things continued going downhill. "After that I was pretty mad at him. I started joining the other kids in calling him names to get even. But after that they started being my friends so I kept up the act. In middle school I met Koga who was on the track team and he started hanging out with us. He was always crueler to Inuyasha than the rest of us, and Inuyasha hated him with a passion. Still does.
"Inuyasha started acting violent again when we got to high school and sent two boys to the hospital with broken bones. Ever since then, every time he saw me it was like he was waiting for me to bite his head off. I think he stopped trusting everyone but Miroku, Naraku, and his brother." It was then Kagome had a strangely enlightened moment. "Almost like he didn't want to risk trusting anyone else. He didn't want to get close because he was afraid of being hurt after his mother died and I started being mean to him. So he started acting like the animal we always told him he was."
Kagome looked to Sango and Kirara, stunned at this revelation. Sango had a shocked look on her face that showed she was thinking the same thing. Kirara simply nodded and looked to Kagome with a look in her eyes that seemed to say 'Now you get it.' Kagome felt an incredible rush of regret and guilt. It took her this long to figure this out?
As if she could read minds, Kirara shook her head. "You never thought about it enough to make the connection," she said softly. "We all make mistakes. What I want to know, is why you let yourself continue to treat him so poorly when it was obviously no longer necessary."
With her newfound wisdom, Kagome found the question much easier to answer now. "I guess it was because I convinced myself I hated him like everybody else. I never actually thought that..."
"I see." Kirara placed a comforting hand on Kagome's shoulder. "You know what this means you'll have to do, don't you?"
Kagome nodded. She would have to apologize, and this time for real. She owed the poor boy that much. "I better go find him." It was barely audible, but Kagome knew they would know.
Kirara then turned to Sango as Kagome stood up and walked off. She heard them talking for a moment before their voices faded into the distance. "Are you ready to talk now? Kagome's figured things out, and now its for the best that you do, too. So, just how did things end up so bad between you and Miroku?"
******************************
Meanwhile, Shippo wasn't having nearly as much luck. He was trying to get some answers out of Inuyasha, but he was being stubborn as an ox and refused to talk. "No!"
"Come on, why don't you just tell me what's bugging you so much about this?" Shippo stepped in front of Inuyasha again as the silver-haired boy tried to get away again.
"Don't make me step on you!" Inuyasha growled. "I told you it's nothing!"
"If it's nothing, then why are you being so defensive?"
"I'm not being defensive!"
"Then just tell me!"
"No fuckin' way!"
"Act your age, damn it!"
"Fuck off, half-pint!"
"If you don't tell me, I promise to make the next two months for you just as excruciatingly obnoxious as this moment right here!"
That got his attention. Shippo felt a sense of satisfaction in the brief look of horror that crossed Inuyasha's face before he replaced it with a scowl. "Fine!"
"Good! Now cough it up. I want to know just what about Kagome has your cage so rattled." Shippo folded his arms over his chest and stared intently at Inuyasha. He hoped Miroku wouldn't be as big a baby about this when it was his turn.
"I guess... I guess that... Well, I... Argh! I don't know!" Inuyasha threw his hands up in the air in frustration. Shippo should have known that this was going to be difficult. Not only was Inuyasha often very tight-lipped about his feelings, but he was terrible at expressing himself through any medium other than music.
Shippo growled softly in frustration as Inuyasha turned up the volume on his headphones. This guy was impossible! "I'm waiting!"
"I thought she hated me, okay!" Inuyasha finally shouted. "You and Miroku both know I liked her back in fifth grade and she just spat in my face. She didn't even feel guilty about it! She starts hanging out with my worst enemies, including that Koga bastard, and she just keeps on trying to rip any sense of self-respect I have to shreds. Is it any wonder I turned out as fucked up as I am?!" (AN: Three guesses what song he's listening to.)
Well that did it. He was on a roll now. Inuyasha was always on some kind of an extreme. He was now an avalanche, rushing down the mountainside with no sign of stopping, crushing anything that dared interrupt him. "I'll admit it, I can be jerk-off! I'm a total prick half the time, I know! But what the hell do you people expect from me?!" It was a good thing the boardwalk was deserted and there was no one within earshot. "I'm not going to fuckin' stand by and let those bastards push me around! And Kagome...!"
He paused as if he had no idea how to continue. "She's the worst of all," he finally said, this time lowering his voice to normal. "I never did anything to her, I actually tried to defend her once! And she hates my guts, anyway. Now she's being nice to me, and I just don't know what to think anymore."
"Pretty rough, isn't it?" There had to be more. Shippo just had to figure out how to pry it out.
"That's an understatement," Inuyasha snarled. "What does she want from me? One day she's the bitch queen, then the same day she apologizes, then the next day she's right back where we started, and now she's turned nice again. It's like she's a friggin' schizo! I'm not even sure I'm talking to the same person anymore!"
"Why does this bug you so much?" Shippo was getting impatient. This was good progress, but it wasn't what he was looking for.
"I don't know," Inuyasha snapped. "Something about Kagome just... I can't..." The anger and frustration slowly drifted out of his voice to be replaced by confusion and despair. "The way she treats me... I should hate her. But I don't. I don't know how I feel anymore, I just know that I don't hate her. I've been telling myself I do for the past five years, but I just can't make myself believe it." Inuyasha rested his arms on the wooden railing of the boardwalk and buried his face in them.
"I don't know, but I actually do care what she thinks." His voice was muffled but still audible. "I figured that much out last night. I actually care about whether or not she hates me."
Shippo put his hand on Inuyasha's shoulder in an attempt to comfort him. "What do you plan to do?"
"I don't know." Inuyasha seemed to relax slightly.
******************************
Kagome wandered aimlessly around the mall for a while, trying to spot Inuyasha among the thin crowd. He should be easy to find, shouldn't he?
After a minute or two, Kagome heard faint noises that sounded like shouting. She was always a very curious girl, and this was no exception. She followed the indistinct shouting, wondering just who was yelling and why. She peered around a corner and saw the boardwalk. Thought it was far away, she recognized the three figures standing alone. Miroku was leaning up against the rail and appeared to be fiddling with his beads again. Shippo seemed to be trying to comfort Inuyasha who had his arms on the railing and his face buried in them.
It was now or never. Taking a deep breath for courage, Kagome strode quickly to the boardwalk, clearing her throat to draw the boys' attention. All three looked up at her in surprise and Inuyasha's face went beat red. "Inuyasha," she started shakily, "can I talk to you for a minute?"
"S-sure." He stuttered.
Kagome glanced at Miroku and Shippo for a second. If they could hear, there was no way this would get done. "Alone? Please."
Inuyasha looked at his friends for a moment and nodded. He strode up to Kagome, who took his arm and lead him off down to the beach. She continued glancing over her shoulder until she was certain that Miroku and Shippo were out of ear shot and stopped. She took a few more deep breaths for courage and looked up at Inuyasha who seemed both nervous and confused.
"You wanted to talk to me?" It sounded desperate, nervous. Not that Kagome could blame him. If she were in his shoes, she would be scared out of her mind, too.
"I... I had a talk with Kirara..." Kagome mentally kicked herself. That was certainly a great way to start and relieve the poor boy of a little bit of terror. "I realize I've done and said a lot of things... mostly about you... that I'm not too proud of..."
"Kagome?" Now Inuyasha looked hopelessly lost. Damn! Why couldn't this be easier?
Kagome decided to just swallow her pride and let it all out. In one big rush. "I'm so sorry, Inuyasha! I've been treating you like trash all these years and you never did anything to deserve it! And now that I figured that out, I feel like I'm going to die if I don't do something about it, but if you can't forgive me I understand completely, I just needed to get this off my chest before it drives me insane! Oh god, I'm so, so sorry!" Well, that was a little less than dignified. Now what?
******************************
Inuyasha stood mute with shock for a moment. Kagome had just poured out the most sincere apology he'd ever heard from anyone in his entire life and confessed that she now realized she'd been a bitch to him all these years. When did this happen? Still, don't look a gift horse in the mouth, father always said.
The silence might have gone on a little too long, however, because Inuyasha heard Kagome give a gentle sob and the salty scent of tears filled his sensitive nose. Oh great! She took his silence for a rejection of her apology. When Kagome turned her back to escape, Inuyasha darted his hand out and caught her arm. "Wait a second! Kagome, it's okay! I accept!"
The girl struggled for a second before his words sunk in and she looked up at him in shock. Inuyasha gently brushed the tears from the corners of her eyes as she stared at him. "How can you forgive me so easily? After all I've done to you..."
Inuyasha gave her a rare smile. "When you live on my side of the tracks as long as I have, you don't take apologies for granted. It's okay. You're sorry for the differences we've had in the past, and that's all that matters. As long as you don't start doing it again, it's fine."
Kagome just looked down at the ground, obviously still having a hard time accepting the fact that she was so easily forgiven. She must have had one powerful guilt trip to be affected this strongly.
Inuyasha decided to try and console her again. What else was there to do? "I tend to hold a grudge, but my mother always taught me to be more forgiving. Don't worry about it. It's all in the past now."
Kagome finally looked up at him and smiled softly. "Thanks, Inuyasha. People are wrong about you. I was wrong about you."
******************************
Kagome thought that could have gone a little better, but it worked out in the end, anyway. When Inuyasha didn't respond to her apology at first, she was ready to break down and cry. Not that she could have blamed him if he didn't forgive her. She had played a major role in ruining his teenage life, and then just came in with an impromptu apology.
But, he had accepted, and he was starting to show that nice-guy side to him from last night. People really were wrong about him. Kagome felt indescribably relieved and now felt a certain amdiration for the silver-haired boy in front of her.
She straightened herself up and wiped at her eyes again. She could still remember how surprisingly gentle his callused fingers had been when he brushed her tears away. She smiled up at Inuyasha and felt a strange impulse take hold of her. "Would you and Sesshoumaru like to come over to my house for dinner sometime?"
Inuyasha looked as if she had just asked him to marry her. "What?" was his meek reply.
"Well, we had dinner at your house once before. I thought you and your brother might like to come to my family's home next time."
Inuyasha idly scratched at the back of his head, triangular ears twitching slightly. "I guess so. I could talk to Sessh about it tonight. He does seem to get along well with your mom and grandfather." He shrugged slightly as if unsure of his own observation.
Kagome just giggled. "Not to mention how he gets along with Kikyo."
Inuyasha just raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"
Kagome rolled her eyes playfully and giggled again. "Didn't you see the way they were looking at each other last night? They way they kept talking? Those two have got it bad." It was still a little wierd to think of those two together, but they really did make a cute couple.
Inuyasha looked thoughtful for a moment then grinned and began chuckling himself. "Now that I think about it, you're right. I can't believe I didn't notice before. Kikyo looked like she was ready to jump Sessh the instant they were alone, and he looked as if he wouldn't have made any move to stop her either."
It was actually a very comfortable moment they shared. For once in their lives, they were getting along and all the past seemed to be behind them now.
Unfortunately all good things must come to an end. "What the fuck do you think you're doing with MY girl, mongrel!?"
*******************************
Back at the garden, Kirara's persistent prying was finally starting to get results. "Okay, okay! I first met Miroku when we were only five. It was at a daycare center." Sango would tell the story, but she doubted there was anything more to it than what she had seen these past thirteen years.
"What happened?"
"Well, like a couple other boys, he started showing off around me and trying to impress me." Sango had to admit that looking back it looked very cute. But that was beside the point. "He would always try to be nice and would stick up for me when boys teased me about being a girl. Stuff like that."
"That was sweet of him," Kirara remarked.
"Maybe, but that's only because he was too little to know what sex was." Sango folded her arms over her chest with a huff.
"That was a little below the belt, don't you think?"
With a sigh, Sango admitted that that was a pretty cold thing to say. Nor was it really fair to Miroku or even guys in general. "Maybe, but that's not important. Anyway, I got kind of tired of all the attention I was getting after a while so I was kind of relieved when my parents took me out of daycare.
"The next time I saw Miroku was when we got put in the same class in third grade. I was homeschooled until then. Well, apparently Miroku hadn't forgotten me because he picked up right where he left off. He kept it up until fifth grade, despite the fact that I never once showed any sign of interest. He just couldn't take a hint."
"Maybe you did too good a job ignoring him," Kirara said thoughtfully.
Sango looked over at the blonde girl in confusion. "What do you mean?"
"Nevermind. Go on with your story."
Sango gave Kirara a questioning look, but shrugged off her curiosity and cleared her throat. "Anyway, Kagome told you about the incident with Inuyasha and Miroku. As we were leaving, I decided I had had enough of Miroku stalking me so I told him to quit following me. I even told him I hated him, just to get him off my back. Truthfully, his persistence was starting to scare me.
"After that he turned really wierd. Started dressing all in black, got this creepy mystic thing going, started wearing that coat... I can't remember just how it started, but in seventh grade he started acting like such a pervert. He couldn't go three sentences without dropping some innuendo in, and he always claimed those times he groped women were just accidents. He certainly went out of his way to make them seem that way."
"Miroku used a lot of innuendo," Kirara remarked casually. "So does my brother-in-law. But he's perfectly normal otherwise. All guys like to make suggestive comments, its their nature."
Sango just crossed her arms. She was determined to win this argument. Miroku was a lying pervert, and that's all there was to it.
"Also," Kirara added, "did you ever stop to think about the possibility that those really were accidents?"
Sango growled softly. "Why would he say something like that unless it was a lie? He wants people to believe they were accidents so they can keep on getting away with it."
"Sango, I can't help but feel you're blowing this out of proportion." Kirara rubbed her temples slightly in frustration.
"I am not!" Sango defended. "He has walked up to any woman that gives him so much as a hello smile and asks them to bear his children!" That was one thing in particular that really bugged her. Every time she heard Miroku say that, she rushed over and helped his victim smack him around.
"Did he ever ask you?" Kirara may as well have been asking about the weather. How could she always sound so damn mellow?!
"No," Sango admitted, "but that's only because he has a self-preservation instinct." She cracked her knuckles to emphasize the point she was trying to make. "But he did have the nerve to actually say to me not more than a half-hour ago why I couldn't treat him like a human."
"Would you like to hear a little theory of mine?" Kirara asked calmly.
"Go ahead." At least it gave Sango an excuse to not go on about this unpleasant subject.
"I think Miroku is both fascinated by you and afraid of you," Kirara began. "Guys are stubborn when it comes to women. They don't like to give up. It's possible that Miroku genuinely has some feelings for you, but you've succeeded in scaring him away. At least to an extent, you have."
Sango sat numb with shock. How could Kirara even think something like that. But she wasn't finished.
"Think about it. Hear me out. He spent two years of his life trying to catch your attention, trying to show you that he did in fact exist. That's devotion. When you threw it back in his face, he immediately afterward turned semi-goth and soon afterward developed a reputation that scares women away from him. Sounds like he has a hard time with rejection."
"So?" Sango wasn't convinced yet. So Miroku didn't take rejection well. So he couldn't let go of the past. Big deal. Though if he couldn't let go of his feelings of rejection, was it possible he couldn't let go of that crush on her? Oh god, there it goes again. Kirara was exceedingly good at making you question yourself.
"I think the whole thing with asking women to bear his children is an attempt to scare them off," Kirara continued. "It's possible that he never got over you, that he doesn't want anybody else. Granted, that isn't really mentally healthy, but in some strange way it's kind of... sweet."
Sango was now beginning to doubt all of her views on Miroku. The poor guy had never done anything to her personally. And everytime he did something for her, she just started snapping at him. He wasn't a stalker, he was just a guy who refused to give up until he had tried everything.
Now it was Sango's turn to feel a massive guilt trip. He wanted her to treat him like a human. He had every right to say that. It had gotten so easy to believe she hated him, that she never stopped to consider why. 'Now I know how Kagome feels.'
Maybe Miroku was lying about the groping being accidents, maybe he was lying about all those awkward situations they had been in together, maybe he was lying about the snake, and maybe he was lying whenever he complimented her and no other girl. And maybe he wasn't. Miroku had never asked Sango to bear his children, but was it out of fear or was it because he didn't want to offend her?
"Confusing, isn't it?" Kirara asked. "You obviously need some more time to think about this. Your situation with Miroku isn't as clear as the Kagome and Inuyasha's." With that, Kirara stood up and walked off. "Just remember what I said and think about it."
Sango sighed in despair. This was not going to be easy. If Miroku really was innocent, then she was going to owe him one hell of an apology. For now, though, she would have to wait and see. Continue testing the waters, as it were.
******************************
Miroku was very, very interested in finding out what was going on between Inuyasha and Kagome, but he felt he should respect the latter's request for privacy. Besides, Shippo turned his attention to Miroku now, and was planning on doing to him what he had done with Inuyasha.
"I don't think you ever told me just how you and Sango got where you are today," Shippo mused. "Care to tell?"
Miroku sighed and retold his story to Shippo. Unlike others, Miroku knew exactly what his problem was. He was able to explain why he did what he did, what steps he had taken to keep other women away, how those steps had backfired miserably. In short, everything.
When Miroku finished, Shippo sat there calmly watching him. "And today you sent her that cryptic little message in hopes that it would start turning the wheels in her head?"
"Exactly." Miroku folded his arms over his chest and sighed.
"Why don't you just tell her outright how you feel?" Shippo obviously wanted to get every scrap of information and eliminate all other possible explanations until he got to the core truth.
"Because I don't want to die," Miroku asnwered flatly.
"So you're afraid of getting your ass kicked?"
"Yes and no. I am afraid of what kind of physical harm she can do. Remember, her family runs a martial arts school and shop. She's probably the school's best fighter after Inuyasha.
"I'm also afraid, however, of what she could do to me emotionally if I did something that stupid. You don't just walk up to a woman and say 'Hey! I've been in love with you for thirteen years and have been expressing it in the most disfunctional ways imaginable the whole time! You wanna go out sometime?' I like having skin on my bones and my heart in a semblence of one piece, thank you very much." Miroku settled back, rather proud of his answer.
Shippo was a sly one, though. "So you're just going to keep up the not-working-out-because-it-sucks routine and let her get away? Face it, dude, you don't have much time left."
Damn. He was good. Much as Miroku hated to admit it, he had just lost this argument. Now he needed to undo ten years of damage to his relationship with Sango in about 6 months. This was going to be hard.
******************************
"Koga?!" Kagome and Inuyasha both shouted at once. "What the...?" Kagome didn't get a chance to finish that sentence when Koga stomped up and roughly jerked her away from a stunned Inuyasha.
"Keep your filthy paws off my girl!" he screamed indignantly. "Fuckin' rapist!"
"Rapist?!" Inuyasha shouted, clearly offended. He was about to shout back at Koga when Kagome jerked her arm free from the dark-haired boy's grasp and slapped him.
"I am not your girl! Where the hell did you get an idea like that? And Inuyasha is not the problem here!" Koga kept opening his mouth to try and speak, but Kagome wasn't about to let him. No one interrupted her. No one. "We were having a conversation when you barged in and interrupted it! And just what gives you the right to grab me like that! I should be screaming rape at you after you almost pulled my arm out of the socket! Well?! What do you have to say for yourself?!"
Nothing apparently. Koga and Inuyasha both stood staring at her in shock, though Inuyasha slowly started to seem very amused.
Koga shook off his shock after a while and scowled at Inuyasha who glowered back. Koga took Kagome by the shoulder and strode off, leaving a seething Inuyasha standing on the beach.
Kagome tried to struggle, but she wasn't strong enough to break free. "What the hell do you want?" she fumed.
"I just wanted to invite you to my party, bitch," Koga huffed. "My folks are out of town for the next week and I'm throwing a big-ass party and you're invited. Tomorrow at 7. I expect to see you there." The last sentence seemed to hold a dark tone to it, as if suggesting something would happen if she didn't come.
As Koga strode away, now looking very pleased with himself, Kagome had to wonder just why she ever allowed him within a hundred yards of her. He was beginning to get scary. And he never did explain himself about the whole 'my girl' thing.
Suddenly, Kagome got an idea. She knew just how she could do a favor for Inuyasha and herself. With a sinister smile, she walked back to the beach, relieved to find Inuyasha still standing there waiting for her.
"What's with the look?" he asked, obviously a little nervous at the uncharacteristically dark cast to her features.
"Inuyasha," she said sweetly, "how would you, Miroku, Shippo and Kirara like to come with me to Koga's party? Every party needs its crashers, doesn't it?"
After a moment, Inuyasha took on a very evil grin himself. "Count on it. And since you invited us, he can't really bitch, can he?"
One of Kagome's teachers had assigned them to read a book called Stranger In a Strange Land a couple weeks ago. One thing the book said was that all humor is based on the misfortune and suffering of others. And right now, Kagome was feeling very, very funny.