A/N: Ha! And you thought I would never add more to this story... Of course, I'm supposed to be working on my other one right now, especially considering how long updates are taking (sorry about that--I'm having computer troubles, though they should be worked out by the end of this month), but I just wanted to get this story moving along a little!

Disclaimer: Don't own what? Oh, right. Sigh.

2. A Dream Come True

Miroku was pretty sure that he had died and gone to heaven. Everywhere, everywhere he looked, on all sides, he was surrounded by girls, all of them wearing skintight leotards while bending and stretching. He sighed in pure contentment. "Pinch me, Inu," he said.

Inuyasha was only too happy to oblige. Kaede glared in their direction as a loud "Ouch!" reverberated throughout the room, disrupting the beat. Kagome giggled behind her hand, momentarily forgetting the pain of trying to touch her nose to the back of her knee. Beside her, Sango was blissfully unaware of the commotion in the room as she, with beautiful natural turn out, gracefully extended one leg in a perfect point.

Across the room, holding on to the barre, another graceful girl was keenly aware of the four new students. Her dark hair pulled back in a perfect ballerina bun, Kikyo was eying the additions to the class.

Kikyo had been the undisputed champion of Kaede's summer ballet class for the last three years. With her naturally thin and graceful build and her surprisingly strong musculature, she had been able to dance rings around all the other students. She always starred in the end-of-summer recital, and she was always revered by the other students. Now she was sizing up the competition.

She wasn't too worried. The girl with the appalling fashion sense obviously had far to go before she was even a tolerable dancer. She didn't have enough flexibility, her shoulders were too stiff, and her hair was coming out of its ponytail and falling across her face. Kikyo patted her own perfect hair. Plus, the new girl was giggling in an extremely undignified manner.

The girl next to her would provide fiercer competition. She had natural grace and good flexibility; she was poised, and she appeared to be enjoying herself. Well, it looked like Kikyo had found her competitor for the year. A little challenge always made her work that much harder. She allowed a small smile to flicker across her pale face before turning her attention to the boys who had joined up. After all, she would need a partner to dance opposite her in the recital.

Kikyo glanced at the one in the purple tights and raised an eyebrow. He was all right, but his friend looked far more interesting. The one he had called Inu, who had loudly insisted that his name was "Inuyasha, not Inu." He was sulking at the moment, but she had a feeling about him, there was almost an aura of...power around him. Very strong, he looked. "Interesting," she said.

"What'd you say?" said the girl next to her.

"I said your arm is supposed to be in second position, not fourth," Kikyo replied coolly. The girl flushed and corrected her arms.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Kagome was ecstatic when the hour-long lesson was over. "Thank you, Kaede-sensei!" she shouted as she ran out the studio. Sango followed at a more sedate pace.

"My legs," Kagome groaned just outside of the studio door where she had immediately doubled up, leaning against the wall. "Sango, will you carry me to the dressing room? Please?"

"I'll do it!" an enthusiastic male voice called. Kagome straightened up so quickly that she almost fell over.

"Who? What?"

"Miroku, of course, at your service." He leaned a little closer, dark hair slipping across his forehead, and lowered his voice, "For now and always." Kagome blushed.

"Ummm. Thanks. Ummm. I think Sango is going to..."

"Ah, is that the name of this fair charmer?" Miroku pointed his most adorable smile at the graceful girl he had noticed earlier.

Sango glanced at him and raised her eyebrows. But before she had an opportunity to say anything, the other new boy spoke up. Kagome did a double take; she hadn't even heard him arrive, although, to be fair, she hadn't heard Miroku either, and he wasn't exactly the subtle type.

"Ignore him," he said. "He's always like this. If you pay attention, it just gets worse."

"My colleague is just jealous," Miroku announced. "Inuyasha, if you don't mind, the ladies and I were having a conversation."

"Jealous?" Sango asked. "Of what?"

"Well," Miroku smiled, as if he had been waiting for someone to ask, "my dashing good looks, my impeccable fashion sense, my well-bred air. The list goes on."

"Obviously no need for him to envy your modesty," Kagome said.

"Fashion sense?" repeated Sango, with a pointed look at Miroku's purple- encased legs.

"But of course, my dear," Miroku swept her a bow, "I am always at the height of the new trends."

"More like falling off the height and crashing down the side of a deep chasm of idiocy, hitting every gauche boulder on the way," the one called Inuyasha snorted. Kagome glanced at him out of the corner of her eye as her lips formed a small smile. Gauche? That was a vocabulary word she hadn't expected to come from his lips. He looked incredibly nonchalant about the whole thing, but she could tell that he was uncomfortable by the way he kept shifting from foot to foot. "Can we go now? I want to get out of these fu...ummm" he glanced at Sango and Kagome, "clothes."

"But of course," said Miroku, "I don't think that they would allow us in the ice cream parlor dressed like this." He gave the girls a quick once over, "Although, you two, I am sure," he continued, "They would practically drag through the door." He smiled.

"Right," said Sango staring at him, "Come on Kags, lets go."

As they headed towards the female dressing room, Kagome leaned close to Sango, "Do you think he was trying to be charming?" she asked.

OOOOOOOOOOOOO

Emerging from the changing room, Kagome and Sango nearly tripped over Miroku who was sitting just outside the door.

"Ready?" he asked, springing to his feet and offering them his arms. They stared at him in open consternation.

"Ready?" Kagome parroted.

"Ready for what?" Sango continued, easily evading his outstretched arm.

"Ice cream of course."

"Ice cream?" Kagome continued her parrot imitation.

"Yes, we were all going to go to the ice cream parlor together, remember? Now hurry up, Inuyasha's waiting." And Miroku swept down the hallway without giving them a chance to reply. Surprised into acquiescence (this was one of Miroku's best tactics and he had spent ages in perfecting it to get the timing just right) the two girls trailed after him down the hallway.

Inuyasha was leaning against the outside of the building, trying to look as if the sign above him did not say "Dance Classes: Ballet, Tap, and Jazz," and almost pulling it off. Kagome had to do a double take just to make sure that the sign hadn't changed to, say, "Men Doing Cool and Manly Things that Would Not Make Them Feel Insecure About Their Masculinity in Any Way, and Incidentally, Would Not Involve Wearing Tights Which are Just About the Most Uncomfortable Garment Created By Mankind."

Inuyasha nodded at Miroku, "Took you long enough." Inwardly he marveled. How Miroku managed it, he would never know. Somehow he could always get girls to go out with him. He claimed that it was all in the approach, 'you've just got to be confident and girls will beg to be allowed to look at you' he used to say. Just wait 'til they find out what a lech he is, though. Inuyasha snorted softly to himself. The taller one looked like she might have a mean right hook. The shorter one probably would be useless in a fight, though. Unless, of course, she was trying to blind the enemy with her absolutely atrocious wardrobe.

He eyed Kagome's outfit with some interest--some sort of tight polka dot pants with a loud print shirt. Polka dots for the love of god, one half of his brain protested. Tight though, the other half pointed out in way that showed that it obviously approved of this aspect of Kagome's pants. Inuyasha ignored that half. He'd noticed her giggling in class, too. Obviously she was some flighty, untrustworthy chick with more polka dots on her pants than brain cells in her head.

Kagome, blissfully unaware of all that was going on in Inuyasha's head, smiled up at him. "Hi!" she said.

"Hmph," Inuyasha snorted. Yep, as he'd expected, words of one syllable were apparently all she could manage.

"Inuya--" Miroku began, but before he could continue to lecture his friend in manners, a task that he undertook quite frequently, another girl walked up.

Graceful and confident, Kikyo walked up to the long-haired boy she'd noticed earlier. "Hello, my name is Kikyo." She smiled coolly and extended her hand. "You're Inuyasha. You have quite a lot of power in your leaps." She practically purred the word 'power' as she gave him a seductive glance. She started to walk away, "See you next class," she called back over her shoulder.

Sango and Kagome stared after her. "How rude. She didn't even acknowledge the rest of us."

Miroku punched his friend in the shoulder, "Woohoo, did you see that?"

Inuyasha tried to close his mouth. No polka dots there, that was for sure.

"Oh for the love of... Come on" said Kagome, tugging on Sango. "Are we going to go for ice cream or stand here drooling?"

"Drooling, definitely," said Miroku falling into step beside them. Inuyasha brought up the rear.