The Club

Christielea54

Chapter Eight

The minute they stepped into the building Shippo came barreling down the hall to meet them.

"Kagome!" he yelled as he reached up to give her a bear hug.

She knelt down to hug him back. "Hello Shippo!" she said cheerily.

Shippo stepped back and looked up at Inuyasha curiously.

"Hey runt," Inuyasha said with a smirk. Shippo pouted at the name, but you could tell that he knew that Inuyasha didn't really mean it, and that he liked the attention.

"How have you been doing Shippo?" Miroku asked.

Shippo's face fell at the painful reminder that he was now living at an orphanage. He shrugged his shoulders. "Okay. You wanna see my new room?"

"Sure thing!" Kagome said warmly.

He led them through the rather plain white halls until he came to a room with the number 12B engraved onto a small grey plate by the door.

There was not much inside the small room other than a bunk bed and two desks on either side of the closet.

"So you've got a roommate?" asked Kagome.

"Tell me she's pretty Shippo!" Miroku said with his usual happy smile.

All three heads in the room snapped to stare in his direction.

"What?" he asked.

"He's eight years old!" Kagome shrieked.

A head popped in the doorway. "Is everything okay?" asked an older lady who worked at the orphanage.

Kagome laughed nervously. "Yes, yes. Just fine."

"Oh." She didn't seem convinced. "Well, visiting hours are over at three." She began briskly walking down the hallway. "Come along Sango."

Following her lifelessly down the hallway was a tall slender girl in her late teenage years. Her hair was swept up into a high pony, and tied with a pink ribbon, but that hairstyle only showed off the dark circles under her eyes. Of course, the only part of her Miroku saw was her behind as she walked down the hallway.

"I'll… be right back," he declared as he slipped out the door.

Inuyasha sighed. What a moron.

"So, what do you want to do before we have to leave?" Kagome asked with an open smile.

The way his face perked up was adorable. "Can we play Monopoly?"

"Of course we can." It can't possibly hurt if it makes him this happy.

Miroku stealthily followed the girl called Sango down the hallways. The old lady escorted her to a room numbered 17A, before she locked the door, from the outside, and went to check on the other children.

If truth be told, Miroku was inwardly a little freaked out by that. Why the hell was she just locked in her room? She didn't look dangerous…

He walked over to the door. It was just a simple bolt lock that he could turn right now if he wanted. They weren't locking anyone else out, they were locking her in.

Why?

Miroku had always been a curious person, had always soaked up knowledge like a sponge, and right now he couldn't just walk away from such a solvable mystery. Especially not when it concerned a beautiful girl…

He turned the lock, and knocked lightly on the door as he opened it.

She was sitting on her bed, staring out the window on the opposite side of the room. She didn't turn around or acknowledge him in any way shape or form.

"Hello beautiful!" he said.

She jumped up and spun around. "Who are you?! I thought you were Mrs. Morimoto!"

"Nope," he smiled winningly. "I'm just Miroku."

Now that she was facing him properly, he could see eyes. Before, she was just another girl. Now, the look in her eyes was so painful, she looked as if she'd seen the end of the world and managed to come back alive. It gave her a terrible beauty that shook him to the core. With a start he realized that she probably had seen the end of her world. She was in an orphanage after all.

He tore his eyes off her and looked around the room. It was so bare. There were no knick-knacks lying around, no personal objects on the dresser. Only the bare essentials. Compared to this, Shippo's room was a freaking toy store.

The answer dawned on him with a wave of sickening realization. He drew in an unusually shaky breath. "They lock you in, because you try to kill yourself." It wasn't a question.

She seemed surprised. "You're pretty smart. Most people don't figure it out."

Something deep inside him snapped. He'd seen so many deaths in his life already. Too many. He would not let someone throw theirs away when they didn't have to. He wouldn't let something so beautiful leave the world without truly living in it first. He wouldn't.

He flashed her one of his best smiles. "Why don't you hang around for at least one more week?" he suggested casually. "Me and two of my friends are here visiting Shippo-"

"The little boy with the red hair?" she asked faintly, her voice nearly cracking on the word boy.

"That's the one. When we come to visit him next weekend, I'll bring you something. Okay? Promise me?"

He'd bring her something?! How dare he make her promise that?! He didn't know how long a week was for her! He didn't know!

"My father died when I was six, Sango. My mother soon after. I know how it feels. Promise me one more week."

She tried staring him down, as she absently noticed how much deeper his voice was when he was being serious about something.

He didn't look away.

She sighed deeply. "Fine. Another week."

Kagome sat back with an amused look on her face. She'd been knocked out of the game ages ago. It was just Inuyasha versus Shippo now, and boy were they serious about it.

Inuyasha had hotels on Boardwalk and Park Place, but Shippo had three or four houses on each of the pink and orange properties. They each had two railroads.

With all the noise that they'd been making, a small crowd of children had closed in to watch the match. Currently cheers of INU-YA-SHA and SHI-PPO were being taken up, drawing strange glances from the orphanage workers.

Kagome hadn't known that two people could make such a big deal out of Monopoly and have so much fun with it. They went back and forth, back and forth, trading money and meaningless taunts. Finally Shippo took up the dice.

The crowd held their breath. One dice fell, a five. The other… a two. He'd landed on Boardwalk. Alternate shouts of victory and defeat rang through the air.

Shippo pouted. "Well you're just lucky."

"It's all in the skill Shippo. All in the skill." Inuyasha looked more smug than she'd ever seen him, but this time, she could see the good natured-ness of it glimmering just under the surface in his eyes.

All the small children clambered onto Inuyasha. Whether to congratulate or to tackle him will forever remain a mystery, but the look on Inuyasha's face was absolutely priceless. His eyes got big, and he was all like "What are you doing?" Then the miniature chair made for five year olds that he'd been sitting on started to tip backwards with the weight of all the children climbing all over him, and it fell over.

They fell in a big heap on the floor with a thud.

A beat of silence passed.

And then Inuyasha decided to get revenge. He started smirking and tackling the kids to the floor left and right, and then he started tickling them. They were a big pile of screaming and laughing children playing with the father they'd never had.

Kagome didn't have the slightest clue as to what had come over big tough Inuyasha, but it warmed her heart to see him this way. I mean, he was actually smiling! He looked so happy! Like he'd finally let go of his problems, even if it was just for a few minutes, playing with innocent kids. It would do wonders for his stress levels.

Suddenly, she remembered the time that he'd been so happy to beat her at their math homework, and the time he'd "conveniently" forgotten to show her how to get the soda-pop tap working, and the time they'd had a pillow fight, and the time he'd fixed her shutter, and the time he'd got detention for speaking "bad" French to the French teacher, and the time he'd stolen Miroku's keys.

This was the real Inuyasha. He wasn't such a grump after all. Underneath he was a normal fun loving guy, and she wondered how bad his past must have been to make him so closed up in the first place. She had a sudden urge to make all of that hurt go away for him, so he could be happy and have this kind of fun all the time.

She let herself watch them with a warm smile on her face. Inuyasha caught her gaze and grinned.

God, his eyes were more alive now than she'd ever seen them. They looked as if there actually was liquid gold swirling around in them, kept hot from all his strong emotions. Absently she wondered if everyone's eyes were so expressive, or if she'd only noticed on Inuyasha because she cared for him so much.

Wait… she did?

He stood up brushing off his clothes. "Okay," he said. "That's enough half-pints." He straightened his dark colored jacket on his shoulders and looked around. "Miroku's not back yet?"

Speak of the devil. "I never knew you were good with children Inuyasha."

Inuyasha just rolled his eyes, but before they walked outside, she saw him throw one last smile to the kids in the lobby.

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Wasn't that just adorable?!?!

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Oh, and I need some idea's for Rin. Got any?