AN: REVIEWS! swims in them I love reviews. They're like... my only friends. I'm such a geek. .
Kitty Kat: You're so smart. Yes, I was Storymind. Now I only use it for reviewing other people's stories.
Chapter Two: Soccer in the Stairwell
This. Was. Insane.
He'd go insane before it was all over. Sango was humming to herself on the opposite wall, staring at her hands as if they were a deeply interesting TV show. Sesshoumaru himself had decided to lean against the wall, and to think on anything but his current situation.'I should never have given her a ride... What did I do to deserve this? No one deserves this.'
And
he was failing miserably.
Sango
got up; thinking that she could at least kick around her soccer ball;
it was a big place, after all. Sesshoumaru didn't question her as she
got up, why bother? They were locked in; it wasn't like she was
going anywhere. So she trudged slowly upstairs to the fourth floor to
look for her lost soccer ball.
Elsewhere
Ring...
Ring...
Kagome flung down the phone on the receiver angrily, "Where the hell is she?"
Inuyasha just looked up lazily from the bed, not bothering to answer. How the hell was he supposed to know? Miroku didn't answer either, but then again it was hard for him to; having to baby-sit his little brother was driving him up the wall.
"Maybe we should ask her mother?" Kagome suggested, flopping down beside Inuyasha.
"Maybe we should ask my mother!" Miroku exclaimed vehemently, trying deeply to get Shippou interested in a box of only eight crayons.
"Ugh! Miroku, let go." Kagome ordered, and then called to Shippou, "You aren't doing this right."
"I'm not female! How am I supposed to know how to keep a kid occupied?" Miroku asked indignantly, escaping his prison-like pastime only momentarily.
"Ditto. We're men, not women." Inuyasha agreed.
Kagome sighed in frustration, "Where is Sango when I need her?"
Back to the Stairwell
Bounce the ball again... and again... and again... and again... and how many times ago did this stop becoming so amusing? Sango let the ball drop and fall down the third story stairs, not bothering to chase after it.
"Sesshoumaru?" She called.
No answer.
"Sesshoumaru..." She called again.
"I'm not a servant. What do you want?" Sesshoumaru answered reluctantly.
"What time is it?" Sango asked.
Sesshoumaru muttered to himself about the indecency of kids before replying, "How come you don't have a watch?"
"Because every watch I own breaks before the week is up." Sango replied, appearing from below to come up to him.
He casually looked at his watch... only to find it wasn't working anymore. Stupid, useless things. So he took it off, and flung it after Sango's soccer ball, feeling that he should've gotten a more reliable watch before now. Sango watched it go with amusement, following the silver flashings of his almost-real watch fly down the stairs to join her ball.
This was nuts. They didn't know the time, they were stuck in a stairwell knowing it was at least ten, maybe eleven something at night, they were the least possible people to get along, despite the fact that they'd been doing so before this, even if it mean sudden death by Sesshoumaru for retelling it. Now—how were they supposed to survive one another's company long enough to live till dawn?
Elsewhere
"Just a little further." Inuyasha said.
"Careful," Miroku warned.
"I'm almost there." Inuyasha said to no one.
"Careful," Miroku warned again.
"The stick... it's... I can't. No! No! The stick! Don't touch it!" Inuyasha panicked as Kagome gleefully tried to make it harder for him.
"Careful," Miroku warned yet again.
"You two are going to go psycho within the hour, you know this, right?" Kagome asked as she watched Inuyasha maneuver the stick so he could get it out.
"But-- But I've almost got it!" Inuyasha said.
"Careful," Miroku chanted for what seemed like the thousandth time.
"Inuyasha! Inuyasha! Look, look at what I have!" Shippou came bounding into the room, smashing apart the pile of their pick-up-sticks game.
Inuyasha just plunked his head down carelessly, having his forehead meet with wood, and Miroku leaned back to the bookshelf that was aged without touch. Inuyasha's bookshelf.
Shippou, full of happiness for a reason yet unknown, bounded back out of the room... leaving a distraught Inuyasha, a victorious Kagome, and a crazed Miroku.
"Why?" Inuyasha asked no one in particular at the loss of his game.
"Careful," Miroku warned, looking dazed.
"Yup. This town is going to hell in a hand basket." Kagome confirmed her suspicions.
Back at the Stairwell
"You do that one more time and the deal's off." Sesshoumaru said.
"Ok. Whatever." Sango mumbled under her breath.
When Sesshoumaru had finally decided to come off the wall and be human, he found his hair stuck him there. He'd needed Sango to help him get off the wall, and that's when she asked him if she could braid his hair. Sesshoumaru had been very reluctant to let anyone touch his masterpiece hair, but decided it might be worth it not to have to be stuck to another wall.
Besides, he'd said the only way she was touching his hair, was if he could touch hers. True he had more of it, but her ebony locks were silk water. Nope, this was definitely something earned. But whatever she was doing hurt and it hurt like hell.
"I heard that." Sesshoumaru said indignantly.
She did something painful again.
"Do you mind?" He asked rudely, "I have a head attached to the hair, you know."
"Really? Cause I found it just floating around by itself." She responded sarcastically.
He growled a warning to make her quite, 'She is getting way too comfortable around me.' He thought to himself.
"Gods!" Sango burst out, frustrated, "You have so much hair!"
Sesshoumaru didn't say anything; he was trying to force back the contended smile that was creeping its way onto his features. There was absolutely no way he would look happy about this.
"Are you done yet?" He asked, trying to sound irritable but just coming off as confused.
"Almost." Sango said.
"You said that half an hour ago." Sesshoumaru said back, actually making irritable.
"Done." She said happily, and got up from her kneeling on the bottom stair.
He got up slowly; sitting there for a long time made him hurt almost all over just in spite of himself. Whatever Sango had done to his hair, he knew it hurt, but it gave off a tingly sensation that felt weird.
"It's a shame we don't have a mirror in here." Sango mused to herself as he turned to face her.
"Well?" He asked.
"What?"
"What did you do and what does it look like?" He snapped.
"Hm. well, I made it look like ears." Sango said.
"What?" He asked, this time not so rudely. Did she say ears?
"Oh, not like human ears. Like dog ears." Sango said, smiling the world.
"Dog ears?" He repeated, dumbstruck, "And how did you manage that?"
She sighed, looking flattered, "It's a girls' obsession with hair, and any girl like that would kill themselves to be able to mess with yours. I feel so lucky."
"If they'd kill themselves to get their hands on my hair, how come theirs isn't the same?" Sesshoumaru asked, finding he didn't understand women as well as he'd thought.
Sango didn't answer him immediately; and he was glad. Letting loose her silky locks must have been painful for the many 'ow's' she issued in the process. When she finally removed the last pin from its place, and her hair cascaded down her back like a flowing river, Sesshoumaru let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding.
"Most women, like me, do have hair like yours; but we still love yours more." She finally replied.
"Why?" He asked, dumbstruck by her onyx locks.
"Because yours is pretty silvery colors!" Sango said, blushing at her bluntness.
"That is it, I quit! I refuse to play with you anymore, you cheat!" Miroku said angrily, tossing the bishop at Kagome's head.
Inuyasha caught it and grinned; he was playing Kagome next, and by the looks of it, was a master chess player; if nothing else.
"Good. Back away from the pieces, Miroku." Inuyasha growled, "It's my turn."
Kagome groaned inwardly, but was saved by Inuyasha's mother coming in.
"Inu, sweetie, have you seen Sesshoumaru?" She asked with a kind smiling face, "Your father's worried; he never came back from the mall."
"Wait, just a minute." Inuyasha said to his mother, and Miroku, Kagome and him huddled in the corner near his closet.
Miroku had a mischievous grin on, "If Sango isn't at her party... and she's not here... she must be at the mall, I mean she told me that she was going to get a--."
"Miroku, don't spray Sango's business everywhere." Kagome interrupted, "Besides, we know she wanted to go to the mall. I didn't know Sesshoumaru was going, too."
"Secret rendezvous, anyone?" Inuyasha said, a scandalous victory gleam in his eyes, "I say they've been holding out."
"Inuyasha," His mother loomed over him, "Don't talk about people behind their backs, and no mention of your brother's business to anyone. It's his, and his alone, whether he chooses to disclose it to anyone else is his choice."
Inuyasha mimicked his mother when she closed the door behind her, but stopped abruptly when she threw his clothes from the wash, not yet dry, at him giving a small but audible 'I heard that'.
"Mothers," He grumbled, "Can't live with 'em, how the hell we supposed to survive without 'em?"
"Ditto. Anyway, how's about we take a little side-trek to the mall, see what's going on?" Miroku suggested.
"Hm." Kagome thought, "But the mall is closed, otherwise it'd be very tempting."
"Very? Why Kagome! I'm scandalized." Inuyasha tried to mimic her too, which only earned him a hit in the head with her shoe.
Sango was once again bored out her mind. It had to be at least twelve. Time couldn't possibly move this slowly. She couldn't sleep despite her tries, and ended up sitting against the wall opposite Sesshoumaru on the top floor, her hair drawn up in a bun at the top of her head, but it didn't matter; it was so long it was like a ponytail anyway.
"So..." Sango began, trying to make something happen, "What did you get Inu?"
"Inu? You call him Inu?" Sesshoumaru asked amusement obvious in his voice.
"What's so wrong with calling him Inu? At least I'm not one of those dork fans of his at school that just scream 'Yasha' all the freakin' time." Sango said.
"Nothing like that; his mother calls him Inu." Sesshoumaru said.
Sango noted he didn't say his mother and decided to poke around a bit in the mind that was Sesshoumaru. "Why don't you call her your mother?"
Sesshoumaru stiffened... visibly. "It's none of your business."
She inched closer to him, "It is your mother, too, isn't it?"
When he actually said something, it felt like half an hour had passed, "No."
"You mean she isn't your mother? Inuyasha is your half-brother.?" Sango asked, dumbfounded.
'Inuyasha... never--never told me? Why not?' She thought bitterly at this piece of new information, 'I'm one of his best friends! Telling me this would be something important to know.'
"Don't make it such a big deal. Families are broken every day by vague causes in variations; I don't see you crying for them." Sesshoumaru snapped.
"It's just..." Sango said, spacing off.
"It's just what?" He barked.
"Inu never told me. All the years of knowing him, and all the years I've been his best friend he never once came close to the subject." Sango said indignantly.
Sesshoumaru snorted, "And why should he? It isn't his problem nor is it yours."
"Sesshoumaru, I... I didn't mean to--." Sango tried to say, but Sesshoumaru cut her off.
"You didn't mean to what? To interrupt in the dark covered secrets of my soul? To know something about me you didn't five minutes ago? This isn't some great history; it's life, and it happens around us everyday, why does my story make it any different?!"
And with that, Sesshoumaru jumped up and walked swiftly down stairs, not looking back. It was so uncharacteristic of him that Sango hadn't the time to expect it and stop him to apologize.
"Damn. Oi, Miroku! This one's locked, too!" Inuyasha said, but apparently, Miroku was over inspecting the other end of the gigantic mall. Then he could always be on the fire escape...
Then Inuyasha noticed Kagome. How pretty she was. Her raven cascade of hair, her purplish, deep eyes, and the way her clothes hugged her curves, enticing a rather embarrassing picture in his mind.
He turned away, red-faced and averting his eyes from her. She was very confused by his actions, but didn't mention it; in her mind, he was most likely thinking on Sango and Sesshoumaru's prediction and where they might be.
Up above them, Miroku was happily spying, feeling that there was definitely something Inuyasha wasn't telling him. Besides, would the lecherous bastard pass up the opportunity to look down Kagome's shirt?
Of course not!
Sango: Kagome should know better.
Sesshoumaru: You should know better.
Sango: blinks The plot was stalking me. What could I do?