Disclaimer: I own a cute, little Kirara plushie, but sadly, not the rights to Inu Yasha.

Chapter Nine

The group was seeking shelter in a wayside house from the pounding rain. Inu Yasha protested greatly, but everyone just ignored him, which only agitated him more. Every few minutes someone would say something about how the rain would let up soon, but they were just trying to silence him. The storm had a lasting, steady quality to it that hinted that it would last a day or two that could be heard through its constant onslaught.

Kagome sighed and set down her History book. Since their journey was on a temporary hiatus, she figured she'd do some homework, but the half demon's complaints were making it impossible. Since he was annoyed, he had decided to annoy right back and he began to kick the wall. The girl put a sugary sweet smile on her face. "Inu Yasha," she called.

The half demon was leaning back on his arms, his foot occasionally slamming into a wall after he voiced his opinions. "What?" he asked.

She scooted over to him, still smiling. Right away he was suspicious; she only looked like that when her brain was cooking up something nasty. "You know, that's really annoying."

"So's being cramped in here," he responded. Oh yeah! Inu Yasha: One, Kagome: Zero! he mentally congratulated himself for his quick come back. He began to pound the wall once more.

"STOP IT!" she finally yelled and her hand shot out to grab his foot.

Pop!

Kagome glared at the raven Inu Yasha. "Maybe now you'll shut up," she told him a condescending voice and went back to reading. The bird scuttered off to go sulk in a corner, making funny growling sounds.

"I'm going to go get some food," Miroku announced. Sango was the only one who acknowledged his outburst. She nodded her head and the monk scampered off to go charm handouts from the owner's wife.

As he walked through the beaded doorway that separated there tiny room from the rest of the building, the demon slayer thought, I hope he doesn't make a move on that woman and we end up getting thrown out. She decided that he wasn't that perverted, the owner's wife definitely being past her prime, and went back to pulling burrs and other debris from Kirara's fur.

There were a few minutes of peaceful silence, then Inu Yasha began to crow out his discontent. He jumped into the air and began to fly around their heads, shrieking. Kagome threw his jacket at him to shut him up and missed. It zoomed through the doorway and out of the room. The bird made a rattling, laughing sound and dived at the miko's head. He snatched up a few strands of hair and pulled.

"Ow!" the girl hissed in pain and smacked him away from her head. The half demon made the laughing sound again and assaulted her hair once more. Finally Kagome caught him and chucked him across the room. Just as the bird was about to land on Sango, there was a Pop! and a naked Inu Yasha fell into her lap instead.

"Ahem," someone cleared their throat in the doorway. Completely in shock, Sango and Inu Yasha looked up to see Miroku with an armful of food. His face was too calm, suggesting that he was about to boil over with rage. The half demon sprang out of the girl's lap and both females clamped their as shut as he quickly dressed.

The soft thud of Inu Yasha sitting down next to Kagome let them know that he was finished. Miroku walked up next to Sango, who was opposite the miko, and sat down, closer than normal. He put three loaves of bread and a large dish of miso soup between them. "The mistress said she would bring us some bowls," he explained, still sounding way too neutral.

Kagome was trying not to explode from laughing. Miroku's acting like a junkyard dog! she gleefully thought. Unbeknownst to Inu Yasha, who was busy stuffing bread into his mouth, the monk was shooting him knife-tipped glares.

There was a knock on the doorframe and when they looked, the owner and his wife were standing there with four bowls, each carrying two and each with a blanket. Miroku politely waved them in and the woman smiled at him. "My, he is a cunning buck! Most charming man I've ever met!" The woman told her husband.

"I'm sorry for having to put so many of you in such a tiny room," began the master of the house. "We have a larger room, but a young woman had already taken up residence in it."

Miroku, Kagome noticed, didn't even react to this news. If anything, he'd inched his way closer to Sango. The demon exterminator blushed ever so slightly as their knees rubbed.

"To make up for such small accommodations, here are some extra blankets," the owner told them. They handed him them the heavy folds of clothe and the dishes and then left. Kagome was happy with the gifts, as the night wore on the temperature was beginning to drop.

Sango, looking for an excuse to move, stood up to set the blankets neatly against the wall until they were needed. When she returned, the monk offered her a bowl of soup. She sat down, not quite as close as he had, and took the food from him. Kagome was very interested to see that as the meal progressed, the young man scooted closer and closer to Sango.

She was trying to think of a discreet way to point this out to Inu Yasha, who probably wouldn't care anyway, when the demon exterminator gasped loudly and smacked Miroku. Kagome hadn't seen the monk pull anything, and then she noticed that his hand was resting on her Sango's upper thigh. The girl was still visibly uncomfortable, and Kagome sighed. Whatever moment there could have been, it was lost now.

Finished eating, Kagome went to get a new textbook from her enormous backpack. When she rooted through the top layer and didn't find what she was looking for, the girl started to worry. Those books were expensive to replace and she didn't want to burden her mom with school fees.

She continued digging through the bag, but never found it. Finally she asked, "Has anyone seen my biology book?"

A/N: Yay! Writer's block over! That bio book is important, by the way. So is the other guest...yes, go ahead and start to guess. I bet most of you will figure it out right away and then I'll have to go sulk in a corner for having such obvious things and what not. I'm kind of disappointed with myself. I went through earlier chapters and found all of these typos that I missed...Anywhoo, please review. Abrupt ending of Author's Note? Exceedingly. I'll shut up now.