DISCLAIMER: I disclaim Inuyasha as my own. Ya—ay.
A/N: Apologies now for this choppy chapter. Oh well, the show must go on.
Kuroi to ShiroChapter 2 – Hello, Friend
By Blue a.k.a. asian tofu
Kagome walked out of class, mind burning from the lack of humanity from her instructors. She was taking two courses, and each one had a 10-page report due the following week Monday.
College must hate me.
She sighed inwardly, shifting her bag to her other shoulder. Her stomach growled a bit from the lack of a lunch at 2 PM as a door banged open in front of her, releasing a hoard of students. From within the raging pack, Kagome could pick out a familiar face. It's the tall guy…
Her thoughts had sometimes wandered to him when she was idling, but she had never been able to focus a clear image of his face. It was like when she saw him now she was just meeting him for the first time.
Initially, she had meant to call out to him, but then a discouraging fact hit her.
She didn't know his name.
It didn't take him long to notice her, thankfully. In seconds he made his way through the crowds towards her, struggling with the weight of his bag in the process. "I believe we've met," he greeted.
"Hi…" Kagome enunciated carefully, as if the word was foreign to her, "I didn't get your name last time. Mine's Higurashi Kagome."
Shunsuke smirked, "We weren't probably acquainted because of certain interruptions," he laughed, winking at her. "But I'm Shunsuke, Kagome."
"I prefer calling the 'interruption' variations of the term 'boyfriend' or Hojo," Kagome grinned.
They stood there awkwardly for a while, absentmindedly staring at each other. Shunsuke broke his eye contact, stuck out his hand, and the two shook on it.
"You hungry?" He inquired, noting how her light grip felt so undeviating on his hand.
Kagome stared at him ironically, clutching her tumultuous stomach, "Did you need to ask?"
"WacDonald's?!" Shunsuke exclaimed woefully, desperately trying to escape the evil grip that Kagome had on him. "Don't you know fast food restaurants are bad for your health? They're fattening!" He was regretting immensely that he hadn't thought to change the oil in his car the day before.
Kagome rolled her eyes at him, scowling, "If you had actually told me beforehand that you had no money, I would've stopped at the ATM to withdraw some so we could afford something else! But now after going around the same block for about an hour while being half-mugged by a hobo in the process, I'm damn starving and we are eating at WacDonald's!"
There was a certain flare in her eyes that goaded him to nag again.
He didn't.
Shunsuke stared sulkily at his box of Waccy French Fries, picking one up and flapping it around in the air. With his semi-precise vision, he was able to spot the grease that flashed in the light against the salt-speckled, golden potato strips. Mindlessly, he sipped at his ice water while taking precautious nibbles from his Whamburger. At home he hadn't been subjected to fast food much – maybe that was a consequence of being born to overprotective, health-loving parents.
Kagome willfully eliminated her Whamburger into mere crumbs before starting voraciously on her share of fries. She had to get 2 refills of her Coke in-between the rapid disappearance of her order.
She was wiping her mouth in an excessively ladylike manner when her attentions finally directed to Shunsuke, who was gagging from trying to consume a French fry too quickly.
"Shunsuke," she glanced at her watch; another hour had passed, "we should be getting back. I have another class at 7 tomorrow and I haven't managed to do the assignment yet."
The fast-food-phobic mentally sighed in relief. He couldn't take any more of the non-organic fumes pervading from the kitchens.
Their conversation was interrupted by a ringtone suspiciously parallel to the musical Annie's 'Tomorrow.' Shunsuke got up, "Excuse me," and retreated in a less crowded corner of the restaurant to answer it.
Kagome checked to see if he was looking, and stole a mouthful of fries.
"All right," he said when he returned, throwing away the remainder of his meal, "who's driving?"
"It's not like we have anything to drive," Kagome prompted sardonically. Shunsuke flipped out his cell phone once again and called a nearby mechanic shop, where his car was currently housed. He glanced at her a few times from across the table while he exchanged a few words, and promptly hung up.
Shunsuke slid the keys across the table, "Walk another block and you will."
"Are you sure about this?" Kagome repeated timidly, delicately handling the steering wheel.
"We all had driving lessons somewhere along the line," he said, scrutinizing the way her hands shook. "You did have some, right?"
"Y-yeah…" If getting through half of it in Sengoku Jidai counts.
"Brakes!" Shunsuke shouted feverishly.
"Which one is it?!" Kagome asked hysterically, pressing her feet everywhere to try the different ones. The car screeched to a halt millimeters before colliding with a semi-truck. The car's momentum jerked both its passengers forward, the safety belts grinding marks into their necks.
"Maybe I should drive," Shunsuke proposed assertively. Kagome smiled weakly.
"I'm fine, don't worry. I think I'm getting the hang of this…"
Oh…god! Shunsuke screamed inwardly. He was too buried in his own self-pity to actually realize anything at all until…
"Damn it woman, you're on the wrong lane!" Without further ado, Shunsuke, wretched the steering to the left onto the correct path. His heart was beating so erratically he was afraid his ribcage might've fallen to pieces inside.
Kagome gazed at him surreptitiously. He sounded so…Inuyasha just then. It was the first thought associated with the hanyou that didn't bring her to tears.
"That's it, I'm taking the wheel. I don't care if you've got a problem with it either!" Shunsuke declared, turning the car onto the side of the road. Kagome broke away from her trance just in time to assimilate his words properly, exiting the car and entering on the other side – safe.
"Where are you going?" Kagome asked shortly, unfamiliar with the route.
Shunsuke shrugged sheepishly, "I'm kind of in a clutch right now, so I'm going to my apartment." He nonchalantly ran a red light, "From there you'll be able to call your boyfriend Hobo – "
"Hojo," Kagome corrected automatically.
"Whatever," he said. "As I was saying, you'll be able to call him or a friend to pick you up." Shunsuke checked his watch, "I've got a," he cleared his throat, "a short-notice date tonight, and well, it's sort of important."
Kagome gave him a mischievous, knowing look, "Meeting the parents?"
Shunsuke blinked at her, grinning, "Hopefully not." Kagome smiled at him in silent congratulations as a twinge of disappointment passed over her.
Shunsuke pulled up into a quite cozy-looking underground parking lot that flashed brand-name cars that could only belong to the children of quite affluent descent. In favor of letting her mouth hang slightly agape to bulging her eyes until they popped out from the sockets, Kagome was speechless.
As she didn't notice him waving his hands recklessly in front of her, Shunsuke could only resort to brute force; that is, to push her crudely out of the car. Kagome immediately snapped back and gave him a smoldering glare.
THWACK.
"Hey! I was only assisting you exit the vehicle!"
Shunsuke, still pouting about the bump on his head, slowly turned the key to his door. He thrust it open, strutting into a pile of dirty laundry, which he quickly and efficiently kicked aside with his foot. Kagome hesitated, standing outside the door.
"What?" Shunsuke asked, flinging his jacket messily onto a couch. He sensed her uneasiness, "For your information, I'm not a rapist or a psychotic serial killer; so it should be safe for you to come in."
Kagome took a few steps inside to the living room. She stood there for a minute, scanning the heaps of magazines and almost every type of masculine clothing available, and blood rushed to her face. From the mess or the superbly revealing display of his personal wardrobe.
Shunsuke frowned, "Kagome?"
The shade of red was getting darker and darker. He reached out to touch her, and she instantly ran out of his grasp, speeding into the hall.
"Kagome!" He sprinted after her, frantically examining the corridors for any sign of her. It didn't take him long to spot her leaning against a wall in the faraway end of the hall that led to the stairs. Shunsuke edged cautiously towards her, fearing that she might flee again. She was a sight to behold.
Panting in between phrases, Kagome managed to get out, "Sorry 'bout that Shunsuke." She took a few more deep breaths through her nose, "But I just couldn't hold my breath any longer! The stench was suffocating!"
"What stench?"
Shunsuke pushed his hands deeper into his pockets as the cold started to get to him. The time was 5 PM, and his date was at half-past six. The drive would take at most forty-five minutes. If he'd calculated correctly, he would arrive on time.
He said a good-bye to Kagome and gave a sardonically saccharine wave to Hobo – er, Hojo when Kagome wasn't looking. He got a narrow-eyed stare in return, which fulfilled a small satisfaction in him.
The couple mounted the SUV accordingly and tediously backed out of the visitors' parking lot. Shunsuke put on his most charming smile and waved for a total of ten minutes before they were finally out onto the road. He dashed to his own car and jumped into the front seat.
"Shit!" He cried; fumbling with his keys as he hastily revved the engine up, speeding well over the limit to get out.
Part of the reason Shunsuke had broken up with his previous girlfriend was because she was cheating on him – and vice-versa. Both had known that there was no chemistry, but they'd maintained the relationship till graduation for a show to their friends, who had insisted on hooking up the two would end with entertaining results.
"Reservations by a Wakiru-sama?" The waiter inquired politely, blinking without many intervals.
Shunsuke nodded, getting wind that he was still in his casual clothes, as opposed to the dressed up businessmen conversing nearby at a table. "Er, waiter. How many people are at the table?"
The older man gave a last blink and turned to check, "Two, sir." He fathomed Shunsuke desperately run his fingers through his hair, trying to get it to look presentable. "Should I inform them that you wouldn't be joining them, sir?"
"No, it's all right," he said more to himself than to the waiter, "and I think I'll walk myself in."
"As you wish, sir." The waiter retreated back to the front desk to attend to the next set of guests.
Shunsuke was astutely thrilled of his jeans and the coffee stain on his shirt that seem to highlight the floating words 'Hi! I'm a lost hobo'!
His date was seated at a table discreetly covered by a stained glass panel that exulted a maiden in a flowered kimono walking across a bridge with her young son. He wasn't able to make out the other occupant, but it looked like a guy. Great, she'd brought her father – after only a month of dating!
The exchange behind the panel ceased as his footfalls creaked the wooden panels beneath him. His date emerged from the camouflage of the stained glass, grinning modestly.
Shunsuke mentally controlled his explosion of reactions. He smirked at her and gave her a peck on the cheek, whispering into her ear smoothly.
"Having a nice time without me, Sango dearest?"
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Ah, more suspense. Who is Shunsuke, really? scratches head That'll take time and is probably one of the more concealed secrets of this story. Anyway, since I'm writing this at such a late hour (12 AM), you as the reader should obviously be obligated to review.