Without KittyLynne (of The Promise and Leather and Lace fame) the latter part of this chapter would not be, so thanks for the review that spawned the idea ::hands KL a saucer of cream:: You rock, hon.
Disclaimer: If I owned it, I would know if it really is his tail
Scroll Five - "That's his tail!"
When Kagome arrived at her science class the following morning it was with a great deal of trepidation. When she had last been on Earth they hadn't even invented science, least not in an academic sense. In a practical sense it was everywhere, but no-one had to write an essay on it. And there certainly hadn't been all those big words like peristalsis and thermodynamics. She was really beginning to wish she'd paid a bit more attention to world below her all those years in Heaven, rather than just dismissing it as a blob of earth with warring people on it.
So it was with some apprehension she took the lab coat offered by the Sensei and sat on the stool next Inuyasha. The heading on the board had her stomach engaging in wonderful imitations of a sinking ship, complete with authentic seasickness effects as an added bonus.
Exothermic Reactions.
"Relax." Inuyasha murmured in her ear. "It just means we're burning stuff to see if it gives out energy, in this case heat and light." He gave a quiet chuckle. "But no fancy celestial tricks this time."
Kagome bristled and turned to him with a scowl. "I told you not to mention that to anyone." She hissed, before glancing around to make sure no-one else had heard.
"I'm not mentioning it to just anyone." The hanyou pointed out, amusement still dancing in his amber eyes. "You're the one that did it in the first place."
For a while Kagome briefly entertained the notion that Inuyasha would be much easier to guide to any form of glory if she just bashed him over the head and dragged him to it. She turned to him with a sweet smile. "Kaede mentioned something about your cute lil' puppy ears…" Her voice trialled off and she raised her gaze meaningfully to his now flattened ears.
He'd been right; the old biddy had slipped that fact to Kagome. Damn. Why not just slap a lead on him and call him Rover, it came to the same thing; control. Over him to boot. He voiced a put out sigh and turned to the board.
"Just don't mention it period." Kagome whispered as the Sensei began the register.
The clock ticking on the wall showed another fifteen minutes until the end of the lesson and Kagome was copying out the rough notes taken during the experiment when it hit her unexpectedly. Homesickness. When she had left Heaven it had never occurred to her that she would miss it with such intensity, or that she would miss it at all. Now she found herself thinking back on those all night harp marathons with the girls with a distinct longing in her heart. It was official, she was going mad. Wanting all night harp marathons instead of chemistry lessons? Even if chemistry wasn't exactly the most interesting thing in the world she still got to blow things up, which was always fun. (It is perhaps wise to point out that this is not the kind of thing to admit to in public as it tends to get one slapped in a fireproof cell faster than you can say "pyromaniac".) But choosing endless renditions of Greensleeves over burning magnesium and watching the pretty flare it made? She had to be off her rocker.
Kagome sighed and tried to put it out of her head for the remaining ten minutes of the lesson. Twenty-five seconds later she threw down her pen in a fit of frustration and put her head in her hands. It wasn't working. Now she was missing the singing.
Inuyasha watched Kagome out of the corner if his eye as he packed away his books. Towards the end of the lesson she been rather subdued and he had detected a strange mixture of sadness and frustration to her movements. Once she had packed all her things away she remained seated on the stool, face pressed into her hands. The hanyou cocked his head to one side, eyes and ears trained on her hunched form.
"Kagome?" He reached out a hand to touch her shoulder, only to snatch it back when she lifted her head. No way was he about to get caught developing a soft spot for the girl. Just didn't want her bawling her eyes out all over him, that was all. She did have that look about her, as if she was about to spill any minute.
Instead she startled him with a sarcastic laugh. "And now it's the prayer meetings." She muttered towards her hands. "God help me, I'm missing the bloody prayer meetings."
Brows drawn together in confusion, Inuyasha tried to work out exactly what she was talking about. He'd just come to the conclusion she was in fact talking an entirely different language when she slammed her fists down on the table. "God damn it!"
There was a drawn out silence following this uncharacteristic outburst and then the sensei cleared his throat. "Swearing is not allowed in this school, Higurashi."
She jumped, obviously having forgotten he was still in the room even though all the other students had long since departed for lunch. "Gomen nasai."
He nodded, satisfied. "See that it doesn't happen again."
Kagome lowered her face back to her hands as he left the room and sighed. Eventually she stood and shouldered her bag, slowly making her way to the door with Inuyasha behind her. Once out in the hall, she slumped against the wall, trying very hard not to cry. But as she stared at the ceiling, she could hear the music, hauntingly beautiful, the harps, the lilting, pure voices. She could see the faces of her angelic friends, their smiling, laughing faces. The ceiling blurred. Her chin trembled and she had to make a determined effort to stop it before her tears tumbled from her lashes.
"Kagome?"
Inuyasha's tentative query brought her back to earth and she scrubbed away the tears. She sniffed and gave him a watery smile. About to reassure the hanyou and soothe the worried concern that radiated off him, she barely had the chance to open her mouth when someone latched onto her hands. Kagome blinked and stared up at Kouga, not really hearing Inuyasha's rumbling growl at her side. The wolf gave her a winning smile, although it showed a few too many teeth for the former angel's comfort, albeit unintentionally.
"Would you go to the dance with me?"
Kagome's jaw dropped and a good two minutes later it occurred to her that she was beginning to resemble a fish fly catching. She closed it and resumed staring at the wolf as if he'd grown a third head. Kouga himself was beginning to feel distinctly uncomfortable under the weight of her stare. Eventually Kagome's brain caught up with events and decided now would be a good time to answer. Having reached this decision, Kagome then had the daunting task of working out what she was actually going to say. Fortunately Inuyasha did it for her.
"She can't." He stepped up along side her and glared at Kouga.
Kagome nodded in agreement and then, a beat. "I can't?"
Inuyasha ignored her. "She's already going with someone."
"I am?" For the briefest of moments Inuyasha wondered if the burning magnesium had frazzled her brains and then a glimmer of understanding dawned in her eyes. "I am." She smiled at the wolf. "Gomen."
He didn't release her hands, eyes flicking suspiciously from Kagome to Inuyasha and back again. "With who?"
"Uh…"
Inuyasha dropped a casual arm over her shoulders and grinned smugly at Kouga. The wolf looked from Kagome to Inuyasha and back again. He opened and closed his mouth several times, glaring at Inuyasha, clearing wanting to say something but lacking the mental power to actually articulate the words. Inuyasha's grin grew wider; he was enjoying this. Eventually Kouga dropped Kagome hands and turned and stalked back up the hall. Inuyasha and Kagome watched him until he disappeared out of sight.
"No loitering in the halls please." A passing sensei chivvied them outside.
"You're joking." Kagome said flatly, staring at Inuyasha's profile as they negotiated the rush hour traffic.
Inuyasha cast her a sideways glance and drummed his claws on the steering wheel, wishing he'd had the chance to fortify himself with a strong, black coffee before starting this conversation. Although perhaps a good glassful of Sesshoumaru's best brandy would have been better. Either way that wasn't going to help him now. A strip of sellotape and a pair of earplugs on the other hand...
"You could have told me earlier. Like when we first met."
The hanyou ignored her as he concentrated on not letting in the taxi that was trying to jump the queue by overtaking in the right-hand lane. Said taxi driver then shook his fist at them and shouted something rude of his window. Inuyasha replied in like with a two fingered salute and an equally rude, if not ruder, yell. Road rage; they sure do start 'em young these days.
"It's not that I mind per se, I'm just wondering if I'm going to come home from this with all my limbs attached and still breathing."
God, he had another twenty minutes of this, forty if they continued going at a crawl, before he got home. Perhaps he should have told her earlier, or not at all. He'd just thought it would be politic to warn Kagome of his brother's –no, half-brother's choice of occupation before she met him face to face. Okay so it wasn't exactly choice, more like a family run business that he was expected to take over after their father had died. All very traditional, handed down from father to son throughout the generations, whether the son wanted it or not. Of course those that wanted out tended to succumb to rather nasty accidents fairly soon after voicing this desire.
"And if I get killed, who's going to feed and look after Buyo for me?"
This got a barely disguised snort from Inuyasha, who was of the opinion that it probably wouldn't do Buyo much harm to go without food for a while. In fact he'd probably come out better for it. Not that he mentioned this of course; Kagome was fiercely protective of her cat.
"…"
He could hardly believe it. It seemed that Kagome had finally run of things to say. Praise the Lord and pass the sake!
She was still speechless when Inuyasha pulled into the drive of Sesshoumaru's rather palatial abode in an upmarket neighbourhood, exactly forty minutes later.
"You live in that?" Well, not quite speechless.
"Come on, do you really think he'd live in some two tatami mat room in the middle of town?"
"I know you said he had bags of money; I just didn't realise quite how many bags he had."
It was true. Sesshoumaru was absurdly rich. Mind you he got paid good for what he did. And he did it well. Which was why he had money to spare for all his organically grown, specially for vegetarians, ridiculously expensive food. Inuyasha only hoped it was some fad he'd grow out of, sooner rather than later, and then they could get some proper food in the house.
He unlocked the front door and led Kagome in, waving aside the squat, toad-like youkai who started to bow and scrape at their feet before realising Inuyasha was not Sesshoumaru, (a fact we can all be grateful for) and that the figure descending the stairs in fact was. Hence his mad scrabble across the floor and the bowing and scrapping that ensued at Sesshoumaru's feet.
Kagome stared. This was Inuyasha's older brother? And was that eyeshadow?
She gave a small smile in return to his greeting and watched as he disappeared into the kitchen. Then, very quietly, she said:
"If he's a vegetarian, why is he wearing that great big fur stole?"
Inuyasha made a strange noise, somewhere between a laugh and a cough, clamped a hand over his mouth and ducked into the living room, pulling Kagome with him. Quietly he began to laugh, hand still clamped over his mouth in an effort to keep quiet, then moved it in favour of clutching his sides as he sank down onto the sofa, laughing silently. Eventually he managed to calm himself enough to say in between giggles,
"That's his tail!" before he burst into all out gales of laughter. Kagome went pink.
He'd just managed to persuade himself to breathe again when Sesshoumaru appeared in the doorway, no doubt curious as to the source of his half-brother's merriment. Unfortunately the sight of him set Inuyasha off again and Sesshoumaru gave up trying to get any sense out of him and went back to his tofu salad he'd left in the kitchen.
Kagome was now a bright, neon shade of puce. Bright enough to put a 100 watt bulb to shame. Perhaps she really should start looking into small, affordable holes in the ground to swallow her up. E-bay had some going at rock bottom prices the other week.
............
I have actually no idea what Sesshoumaru's white fluffy thing is... Maybe it's just there to look good and serves no other purpose at all...
On the other hand I do know what Sesshoumaru actually does for a living, I'm just not telling. Not yet anyway.
I also know the answer to that crossword question a couple of chapters back. That I am telling. Clue: Aide reforms Satanists. Answer: assistant -anagram of satanists, hence the reform bit of the clue and aide is another word for assistant. And that was out of the easy crossword in the local newspaper. I can't even get my head round the ones in the national papers. Those require interlect and an education. Oh, and a memory to remember all that education.
Finally, thank you to all you lovely people who left reviews. With any luck I'll get around to doing a response bit soon... she says...
Bloody doesn't show asterixes now -.-