Author's Notes. Still sick. Still bored. Still writing. Hopefully the
doctor's appointment I have coming up will shed some light on all this.
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Lights, Camera, Action!
Chapter 3- Take 1
The week had gone by slower than Kagome thought she could bear. She was pleased to find out that she was in the same Fiction Into Film class as Sango and Inuyasha. That made things a little more bearable. Don't get the wrong idea, she was happy with her classes. But she was so eager to get to work on these TV projects. Miroku seemed to have taken a hint after the first couple of days and didn't make any moves on her. Though to compensate he seemed to go into overdrive on Sango. She almost felt sorry for him with all those extra beatings he was getting. Almost.
Kagome also learned that Shippo was still a freshman. The reason he knew so much about the school was because his mother was a biology professor there, meaning he had been familiar with the campus for years and he got to attend for free. Lucky stiff.
Other than Fiction Into Film, Kagome hadn't had much contact with Inuyasha. And he was usually pretty tight-lipped. At least he wasn't snapping like when they first met. Now he just seemed to be distant and strangely independent half of the time, and sarcastic and contrary the rest. She did notice that a couple of girls seemed to find his angst attractive, though. Of course, she thought that was kind of silly. Why would you want a boyfriend like that? He wasn't a bad guy, per se. But he just seemed so shut off from the rest of the world. That and he seemed to take an unusual amount of pleasure in arguing with people. His friends were the only ones he really seemed to act "normal" around.
Not that that mattered today. It was Saturday afternoon. They had just wrapped up the news and reviews and were getting ready to work on the first of their new shows. They had all decided to start with only two and build up from there. Today the focus was on Kagome's first show, Ace Spade: Private Eye. It was at once a homage and a satire of hardboiled detectives and film noir. Inuyasha was playing the title character.
Kagome sat in the director's booth with her copy of the script in her hands and Shippo at the sound board and editing machine. "Okay, Inuyasha, let's do the first take on the opening narrative."
"Right," he said from out in the studio, holding up a microphone under his throat. "Just give me a signal."
Kagome smiled softly for a minute as his violet eyes continued scanning the script. He may have been a little moody, but he was a good actor. She tapped the window to give him his cue.
"My name is Adrian Spade," he started, letting his voice rumble out of his chest a little more than usual and taking on a very serious tone. "Friends call me Ace. I'm one of millions of people in this city. And one of only a handful who work to keep it clean. I'm what they call a private dick. The job is mostly thankless and dangerous... but it's a living. It ain't boring, I'll tell you that. You get a lot of good stories here on the streets. This... is one of them."
"Okay, cut," Kagome said as soon as Inuyasha was finished. "That was great Inuyasha," she said, smiling at him through the window. He glanced at her, but just continued looking at the script. Kagome couldn't help but feel a little disappoined. He was in another of those moods again. "Come on in and we'll hear how it sounded."
He switched off the microphone and walked inside as Shippo messed with the editing machine for a second.
"By the way," Kagome said conversationally, "I never got a chance to tell you, Inuyasha, but Sango and I heard your radio show last Sunday."
"Really?" he asked, looking up at her from the seat he had taken. "What'd you think?"
"Normally, I'm not a heavy metal fan," Kagome admitted. "But I did like that one song... what was it... Samurai!"
"Oh yeah," Inuyasha replied, amusement reaching his eyes. It was the first time Kagome had ever seen that. "Samurai by the Michael Schenker Group. That's one of my favorites."
"Cool name, by the way," Shippo remarked. He then rubbed his throat and did his best impersonation of Inuyasha. "For the next two hours, you will face the heat. Welcome to... The Forge!" He then made a motion like swinging a hammer and imitated the noise of a hammer hitting an anvil. "That was awesome."
Inuyasha just smirked and leaned back in his chair with one arm over the back. "Your damn right it was."
Kagome had to stifle a little laugh at that. He was kind of cute with his male ego being placated. Wait, where did that come from? Well... okay, Kagome wouldn't deny it, he was pretty good-looking. There was certainly no problem with acknowledging that. Just so long as he didn't know that.
"Okay, we got it," Shippo said, interrupting her thoughts. "Let's hear it and see what you think." With that, he clicked the "PLAY" button and the three of them listened to the audio clip playback through the speakers.
"That was great!" Kagome said excitedly. "We'll have to do another one for protection, of course, but I think we nailed it. What do you think, Inuyasha?"
"I don't know about you guys," he said with a chuckle, "but I love listening to the sound of my own voice."
Everyone had a good laugh at that. Shippo rolled his eyes after a moment and muttered "Narcissist."
"Mutant," Inuyasha shot back.
Kagome supressed the last of her laughter and cleared her throat. "Okay. Let's just make that protection recording and then we'll get the cameras when we're done or when Sango and Miroku show up. Whichever occurs first."
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Sango and Miroku had gone out to the pub to get everyone some coffee. Naturally, nothing between those two could be simple. On the occassions that anything they did together went smoothly, one half-expected a jackalope to go by while reading a newspaper declaring that a two-headed calf had been born.
In this particular incident, Sango wasn't feeling too pleased with herself. As they walked back to the studio, she couldn't help but remember how it had all happened for the eighth time in half as many minutes.
She and Miroku had been at the pub, getting the coffee. Instead of groping her, he had been verbally attacking this time. She had no idea you could put that many double entendres into a single sentence. But it was still better than his wondering hands. When they finally got their coffee, he offered to carry the little cardboard travelling tray they were in while she immediately reached for hers to take a sip.
Here's where things started to go downhill. As soon as they had left the pub, Miroku's hands began wondering again. He somehow managed to balance the tray with one hand and reached his other down to firmly grope her butt. The thing is, Sango had been taking martial arts since she was old enough to walk. And she had known Miroku for four years. She was accustomed to action without thought. And with that in mind, she was once again pissed off and focused only on the reflexive action of giving Miroku his due punishment. The only problem with that was that her right hand was still holding the coffee. And when she backhanded him in the chest, snapping her hand back after impact to make sure it would sting, the lid popped off and half the contents of the cup spilled down the front of his shirt.
It only took half a second before Miroku's eyes widened and he dropped everything, including himself, to the ground with a scream loud enough to rattle the windows. Sango just looked down in shock at the realization of what she'd done and turned bright red. That blush only deepened when Miroku quickly became lucid enough to realize he had to pull his shirt off before the hot liquid scalded him. It was an odd situation. On one hand, Sango was a little emberassed to see him shirtless. He did have a really nice body. On the other, she felt guilty upon seeing the bright red marks all over his front.
When Miroku lay still for a moment, staring up at the ceiling and obviously still in pain, Sango knelt down beside him. "M-Miroku? Are you okay?"
"Give me a minute," he said flatly. "For the moment I just wanna lie here."
Sango was still blushing fiercely. "I'm just going to go get some replacements. You gonna be okay?"
"Yeah. Let's just hope nobody chooses to walk by in the next minute or two. They might get the wrong idea."
As they walked back to the studio in silence, Sango couldn't stand to even make eye contact with Miroku. He seemed to be taking it well despite the fact that his bare chest was still bright red, but she couldn't believe she had done something like that. "I'm so sorry," she said for fifth time since leaving the pub.
Miroku just glanced over at her as he kept walking. "It's okay. It was an accident. We all make dumb mistakes sometimes. Like me. I do enough stupid shit in one day for the both of us."
Guilt sucked. It was harder than it seemed to make it go away. "Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?" She knew she was going to regret this, but for once she did owe the poor bastard. If nothing else, it would level out her karma.
"Well..." Miroku turned thoughtful for a moment.
Here it comes. He was either going to ask her to sleep with him or bear his child, to which she immediately would respond with a demand for a more reasonable request, and then would come his puppy-dog eyes and fake hurt voice, and then-
"How about I take a day or two to heal, and we meet at the pub sometime this week? Just the two of us."
Sango looked up at him in surprise. This wasn't very much like Miroku. "That's all?"
"That's all," he assured her. "No catch. No strings attached. Although if you could do me one favor..."
Ah, figures. He would be back to his old self any second now.
"If you could wear that pink ribbed turtleneck sweater you have that night, I'd appreciate it. I just really like that one." He almost sounded guilty when he said that.
That was three times in one hour that Sango had been caught off-guard. She looked at Miroku curiously. She was beginning to wonder if he was in more pain than he let on and it was making him delirious.
He just looked down at her with an innocent look of confusion. "Something wrong?"
How the hell did he do that? Not only did he have the best pokerface Sango had ever seen, but he could shift gears so quickly and easily. "No, no, I'm fine... Alright. Give me a call when you're feeling up to... going out." She hesitated as she said that. It sounded suspiciously like something else. And of course the little voice in the back of her mind was mocking her for it.
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Inuyasha checked himself in the mirror. He was in costume now. Black slacks and a dress shirt with suspenders, tie, and jacket under a tan trench coat and fedora. "Damn, I look good in this outfit." Unfortunately, it was being borrowed from the theater department who agreed to supply the TV club with any and all costumes and props they may need. He placed a toothpick in his mouth to finish off the look. Kagome had already considered a cigarette, but Inuyasha wasn't too keen on the idea, having finally kicked the habit last year. Fortunately, she was understanding.
She really wasn't that bad. Kind of cute, too. He glanced over to see her back was turned. She was looking into the booth talking to Shippo, and Inuyasha took a moment to check her out. Miroku was right. She really was beautiful. He doubted she'd go for a guy like him, but there was really no harm in looking. Then again, why was he thinking that? That was wierd.
The sound of footsteps behind him drew his attention back to the door of the studio. "'Bout time," he said in his usual challenging tone. "What kept you guy-holy shit!" Miroku was shirtless with first-degree burns all over his chest and Sango was looking absolutely mortified. "What the fuck happened to you?!"
Inuyasha heard Kagome gasp behind him and a squeak from Shippo that sounded like some sort of expletive or another.
"I'd really rather not talk about it," Miroku said softly. He handed Inuyasha the drinks and laid down on his back on the couch while Sango merely sat across from him trying not to make eye contact with anyone.
"Yeah," Inuyasha said after a drawn-out, awkward silence, stretching the "y" out a little. "So... are we ready to shoot the opening sequence?"
"Huh?" Kagome seemed to snap out of a trance. "Oh, sure. But we won't be able to film the first episode until it's rainy. So we'll have to wait for a storm."
"Or Godot," Shippo remarked. "You know, whichever comes first." To explain himself, he snatched up a copy of the paper from the desk and pointed to the five day forecast which predicted a sunny week. Oh, hell. This might be a little harder than previously thought.
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Inuyasha had insisted on being the one to drive them into town to do the shooting. The problem was that he seemed to have absolutely no idea that speeding was bad. Shippo gripped the door and his seatbelt for dear life. The camera, tripod, and microphone were all in the trunk, so at least those were in relative safety. More than could be said for the passengers. Sango and Miroku had opted to stay behind and go to the McDougan House which was where the campus medical staff worked. Lucky stiffs.
"Inuyasha!" Kagome shrieked. "Slow down! You almost hit that guy back there!"
"He should've taken the crosswalk when the light was red," Inuyasha said nonchalantly.
"He did! And the light was red!"
"No it wasn't." Inuyasha simply kept up his breakneck driving.
"Yes, it was!" Kagome insisted.
Inuyasha scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Yeah right."
"It was red!" Kagome continued. She hadn't seemed to have caught on yet that there was no point in trying to reason with Inuyasha over this.
"I didn't see it," Inuyasha said dismissively.
"That's no excuse! You're supposed to keep your eyes on the road and pay attention to the signs!" Kagome argued before she squeaked in dismay at being roughly tossed in her seat from a sharp turn.
Inuyasha just grunted out something unintelligable and turned on the radio. Shippo felt his head spinning from the deafening blast out of the subwoofers.
"System of a Down. Awesome!" That was Inuyasha for you. If it had melody and distorted guitars, he probably listened to it. Though Shippo really wished that he could have picked a radio station that was playing something less punishing.
"Turn it down!" Kagome shouted over the music, trying to cover her ears and grip onto something at once.
"I thought you wanted me to watch the road?" Inuyasha asked with feigned innocence and a sarcastic smirk. Shippo knew that the bastard was enjoying this way too much.
Kagome let out an irritated shriek and switched the radio off. Shippo wondered if her ears were ringing like his from the abrupt silence.
The screech of tires and the strong centrifugal force signalled Inuyasha's signature approach to parallel parking. When the car came to a stop, he rolled down his window and stuck his head out, looking down to see his distance from the curb. He then pulled his head back in and smirked. "Damn, I'm good."
Inuyasha hopped out of the car as if this whole trip had been just a walk in the park. Shippo on the other hand was still feeling a little weak in the knees and Kagome looked a little pale. He took a minute to look around before he noticed something. "Inuyasha, we can't park here. The sign says that-"
"The sign can kiss my ass," Inuyasha interrupted as he popped the trunk. "We're not gonna be here long, so just relax." He quickly slipped on his trenchcoat and fedora and placed the toothpick in his mouth. "What do you think?" he asked, striking a pose.
"You're a handsome devil," Kagome said as she straightened herself out. "And I do mean 'devil.'"
"I prefer hellion or demon," Inuyasha replied with a smirk. "Or sexy beast."
Kagome just rolled her eyes and helped Shippo set the camera up. To be honest, Shippo was having a hard time telling if Kagome and Inuyasha were arguing or flirting. Inuyasha was being his usual sarcastic self with puerile wit and joking egotism. But he seemed to actually enjoy these little arguments with Kagome. It was almost as if he went out of his way to argue with her when he wasn't being moody. This would require further investigation, but it was an intriguing theory.
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Shooting the opening sequence was relatively easy. Inuyasha was getting a good grasp over how his character should behave. And despite all their arguing earlier, he actually listened to Kagome's direction. They finished the final shot with Inuyasha pulling the brim of his fedora down over his eyes. "Alright, cut. Great. We've got everything we need, guys. Let's pack up."
Inuyasha took off the fedora and quickly fanned himself with it. "You got my good side, right?" he joked, putting on a very snooty and haughty look and stance.
"Your what now?" Shippo shot back with a smirk. Inuyasha would have flipped him off again if Kagome hadn't put her two cents in.
"I wasn't aware that a sexy beast had a bad side." Now that was what he liked to hear. Inuyasha hadn't quite figured out why yet, but arguing with Kagome was kind of fun. For the past several days, they had often broken into arguments about the most inane or irrelevant topics imaginable. Even in the car when she was getting pissed at him, he thought he heard a hint of amusement in her voice somewhere.
"Why don't you take a closer look and find out." He then gave her an evil grin, which brought forth a gasp and wide eyes. What was she making a big deal about?
"Inuyasha... what's with your teeth?" Kagome asked, still a little startled.
"What, do I have something in them?" He immediately reached up and rubbed his teeth a little.
"No, I mean... you have fangs!" Oh, that's right! He had never grinned enough to show her his teeth before.
"Oh, those." He grinned again, showing off his fangs. "After graduation I thought of getting a tattoo, but instead decided to have my dentist just sharpen these."
Kagome stared at him in surprise for a moment. "Wouldn't that cost an arm and a leg?"
Inuyasha just shrugged. "My family's reasonably well off. Can't say my dad liked the idea too much, but he got over it."
"Ahem!" They were taken out of their conversation by Shippo's annoyed voice. "I'm still waiting to hear something along the lines of 'Here, Shippo, let me get that for you.'" As it was, he was trying to carry the camera, tripod, and microphone back to the car himself.
Inuyasha just quirked a brow and smirked for an answer while Kagome got the tripod. They all walked back to the car in silence and drove off as they came: in a blur.
Inuyasha glanced down at the digital clock on the radio when they were about half-way to campus. "Damn. 7:30 already. You guys want to stop somewhere for dinner?"
"Ooh!" Shippo seemed to have momentarily forgotten his terror at that. "How about Rudy's?"
"Fuck yeah!" Inuyasha shouted in agreement. "I haven't eaten there since last semester."
"What's Rudy's?" Kagome asked, opening one eye as she held her seatbelt like a lifeline.
"It's a 50's style diner," Shippo answered. "They've got the best fountain drinks in town."
It only took another couple of minutes before the arrived at the diner. It was a rail-car shaped building with faux-chrome siding, large round windows, and a big neon sign over the entrance that said "Rudy's Diner" in red retro letters.
The trio all walked in together and stood up front to wait for a server. "What do you guys recommend?" Kagome asked conversationally.
"Just take a look at the menu," Shippo answered. "There's all kinds of stuff here. It's really hard to pick."
"Shippo!" came an excited shout. Inuyasha looked over to see a girl in her late teens with long blonde hair and red-brown eyes wearing a restaurant uniform.
"Hey, Kirara!" Shippo answered back. "Why didn't you tell me you were working here?"
"Sorry," she answered with a smile. "I've just been really busy lately with classes and everything." She turned her eyes to the rest of the group. "Hey, Inuyasha, what's with the Humphry Bogart get-up?"
Inuyasha simply pointed to Kagome with a half-smile.
"She your girlfriend?" Kirara asked innocently.
Inuyasha immediately felt a slight warmth come to his face. "No! She's uh..."
Kagome lightly slapped his arm with the back of her hand and smiled. "I'm Kagome Higurashi. I just transferred to the school last week."
"Oh, you're Kagome! Shippo told me a couple days ago that you were joining the TV club." A light cough from behind Kirara and she flushed slightly, looking back to see a rather irritated manager.
"Oh! Sorry, sir." She smiled nervously before he walked off. Kirara then turned back to the others. "Sorry. Come on, I'll get you guys a table."
"Non-smoking," Inuyasha remarked as she started toward the smoking section.
"Oh right, you quit last year," Kirara remarked. "I'd almost forgotten, it's been so long since I've seen you guys." She then led them to a booth with a window facing the street. She gave them three menus and smiled. "I'll be back in a minute." With that, she strode off with Shippo watching her go with a little smile on his face.
"I think after we get our drinks we should get a bucket of cold water to dump on him," Inuyasha said to Kagome.
Kagome giggled a little and glanced at Shippo over her menu. "Does he have a little crush on her?"
Inuyasha just rolled his eyes. "We're talking about him as if he isn't here, and he has yet to notice. What do you think?"
It was kind of annyoing really. It wasn't that Inuyasha didn't like Kirara. On the contrary, she was a good friend and had been for a couple years now ever since Sango introduced her. But the way she and Shippo constantly drooled over each other without ever actually making any moves was starting to get on his nerves.
Kagome had a very thoughtful, almost impish grin on her face when Inuyasha looked back to her. "What are you planning?"
She chuckled softly and looked up at him, causing Inuyasha to once again feel that heat in his face which he had to use every ounce of willpower he had from his training as an actor to push back down. How the hell did she do that? "I've always wanted to play matchmaker. Now I've got two couples to meddle with."
Inuyasha just raised a brow and tried to keep the grin contained to a smirk. This girl was nowhere near as innocent as she let on. And though it took a lot of mental battles throughout the rest of the night, he was finally able to admit, at least to himself... he thought it was pretty hot.
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Author's Notes: Yeah, I just had to put Kirara in again, didn't I? I decided to go for a different incarnation this time while still keeping some of the elements I thought were pretty close from Let the Music Be Your Master. It just seemed like a fun challenge.
Anyway, my reviewers...
Mimiko: Don't get too used to this pace. I'm having a creative spike, and those don't last long. I'm just trying to milk it for everything its worth. But thanks for the compliment on the character interaction. It's one element I've really been focusing on honing as I continue writing, as I feel it's one of my strengths.
bluefuzzyelf: Yeah, I figured that without certain events, Inuyasha wouldn't really hold the grudge very long. At first, I wrote him acting normal as if out of spite to say that being dumped didn't bother him. But now... well I think we can all tell that he really is starting to loosen up by now.
Araine: Congratulations, you have just discovered one of my weaknesses. Though "bribe" is a strong word. I prefer to think of it as "incentive," wink, wink.
Father Malvado: I agree. TV sucks. Except Adult Swim.
lilly: Mostly what stops us is that we have very limited attention spans.
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Lights, Camera, Action!
Chapter 3- Take 1
The week had gone by slower than Kagome thought she could bear. She was pleased to find out that she was in the same Fiction Into Film class as Sango and Inuyasha. That made things a little more bearable. Don't get the wrong idea, she was happy with her classes. But she was so eager to get to work on these TV projects. Miroku seemed to have taken a hint after the first couple of days and didn't make any moves on her. Though to compensate he seemed to go into overdrive on Sango. She almost felt sorry for him with all those extra beatings he was getting. Almost.
Kagome also learned that Shippo was still a freshman. The reason he knew so much about the school was because his mother was a biology professor there, meaning he had been familiar with the campus for years and he got to attend for free. Lucky stiff.
Other than Fiction Into Film, Kagome hadn't had much contact with Inuyasha. And he was usually pretty tight-lipped. At least he wasn't snapping like when they first met. Now he just seemed to be distant and strangely independent half of the time, and sarcastic and contrary the rest. She did notice that a couple of girls seemed to find his angst attractive, though. Of course, she thought that was kind of silly. Why would you want a boyfriend like that? He wasn't a bad guy, per se. But he just seemed so shut off from the rest of the world. That and he seemed to take an unusual amount of pleasure in arguing with people. His friends were the only ones he really seemed to act "normal" around.
Not that that mattered today. It was Saturday afternoon. They had just wrapped up the news and reviews and were getting ready to work on the first of their new shows. They had all decided to start with only two and build up from there. Today the focus was on Kagome's first show, Ace Spade: Private Eye. It was at once a homage and a satire of hardboiled detectives and film noir. Inuyasha was playing the title character.
Kagome sat in the director's booth with her copy of the script in her hands and Shippo at the sound board and editing machine. "Okay, Inuyasha, let's do the first take on the opening narrative."
"Right," he said from out in the studio, holding up a microphone under his throat. "Just give me a signal."
Kagome smiled softly for a minute as his violet eyes continued scanning the script. He may have been a little moody, but he was a good actor. She tapped the window to give him his cue.
"My name is Adrian Spade," he started, letting his voice rumble out of his chest a little more than usual and taking on a very serious tone. "Friends call me Ace. I'm one of millions of people in this city. And one of only a handful who work to keep it clean. I'm what they call a private dick. The job is mostly thankless and dangerous... but it's a living. It ain't boring, I'll tell you that. You get a lot of good stories here on the streets. This... is one of them."
"Okay, cut," Kagome said as soon as Inuyasha was finished. "That was great Inuyasha," she said, smiling at him through the window. He glanced at her, but just continued looking at the script. Kagome couldn't help but feel a little disappoined. He was in another of those moods again. "Come on in and we'll hear how it sounded."
He switched off the microphone and walked inside as Shippo messed with the editing machine for a second.
"By the way," Kagome said conversationally, "I never got a chance to tell you, Inuyasha, but Sango and I heard your radio show last Sunday."
"Really?" he asked, looking up at her from the seat he had taken. "What'd you think?"
"Normally, I'm not a heavy metal fan," Kagome admitted. "But I did like that one song... what was it... Samurai!"
"Oh yeah," Inuyasha replied, amusement reaching his eyes. It was the first time Kagome had ever seen that. "Samurai by the Michael Schenker Group. That's one of my favorites."
"Cool name, by the way," Shippo remarked. He then rubbed his throat and did his best impersonation of Inuyasha. "For the next two hours, you will face the heat. Welcome to... The Forge!" He then made a motion like swinging a hammer and imitated the noise of a hammer hitting an anvil. "That was awesome."
Inuyasha just smirked and leaned back in his chair with one arm over the back. "Your damn right it was."
Kagome had to stifle a little laugh at that. He was kind of cute with his male ego being placated. Wait, where did that come from? Well... okay, Kagome wouldn't deny it, he was pretty good-looking. There was certainly no problem with acknowledging that. Just so long as he didn't know that.
"Okay, we got it," Shippo said, interrupting her thoughts. "Let's hear it and see what you think." With that, he clicked the "PLAY" button and the three of them listened to the audio clip playback through the speakers.
"That was great!" Kagome said excitedly. "We'll have to do another one for protection, of course, but I think we nailed it. What do you think, Inuyasha?"
"I don't know about you guys," he said with a chuckle, "but I love listening to the sound of my own voice."
Everyone had a good laugh at that. Shippo rolled his eyes after a moment and muttered "Narcissist."
"Mutant," Inuyasha shot back.
Kagome supressed the last of her laughter and cleared her throat. "Okay. Let's just make that protection recording and then we'll get the cameras when we're done or when Sango and Miroku show up. Whichever occurs first."
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Sango and Miroku had gone out to the pub to get everyone some coffee. Naturally, nothing between those two could be simple. On the occassions that anything they did together went smoothly, one half-expected a jackalope to go by while reading a newspaper declaring that a two-headed calf had been born.
In this particular incident, Sango wasn't feeling too pleased with herself. As they walked back to the studio, she couldn't help but remember how it had all happened for the eighth time in half as many minutes.
She and Miroku had been at the pub, getting the coffee. Instead of groping her, he had been verbally attacking this time. She had no idea you could put that many double entendres into a single sentence. But it was still better than his wondering hands. When they finally got their coffee, he offered to carry the little cardboard travelling tray they were in while she immediately reached for hers to take a sip.
Here's where things started to go downhill. As soon as they had left the pub, Miroku's hands began wondering again. He somehow managed to balance the tray with one hand and reached his other down to firmly grope her butt. The thing is, Sango had been taking martial arts since she was old enough to walk. And she had known Miroku for four years. She was accustomed to action without thought. And with that in mind, she was once again pissed off and focused only on the reflexive action of giving Miroku his due punishment. The only problem with that was that her right hand was still holding the coffee. And when she backhanded him in the chest, snapping her hand back after impact to make sure it would sting, the lid popped off and half the contents of the cup spilled down the front of his shirt.
It only took half a second before Miroku's eyes widened and he dropped everything, including himself, to the ground with a scream loud enough to rattle the windows. Sango just looked down in shock at the realization of what she'd done and turned bright red. That blush only deepened when Miroku quickly became lucid enough to realize he had to pull his shirt off before the hot liquid scalded him. It was an odd situation. On one hand, Sango was a little emberassed to see him shirtless. He did have a really nice body. On the other, she felt guilty upon seeing the bright red marks all over his front.
When Miroku lay still for a moment, staring up at the ceiling and obviously still in pain, Sango knelt down beside him. "M-Miroku? Are you okay?"
"Give me a minute," he said flatly. "For the moment I just wanna lie here."
Sango was still blushing fiercely. "I'm just going to go get some replacements. You gonna be okay?"
"Yeah. Let's just hope nobody chooses to walk by in the next minute or two. They might get the wrong idea."
As they walked back to the studio in silence, Sango couldn't stand to even make eye contact with Miroku. He seemed to be taking it well despite the fact that his bare chest was still bright red, but she couldn't believe she had done something like that. "I'm so sorry," she said for fifth time since leaving the pub.
Miroku just glanced over at her as he kept walking. "It's okay. It was an accident. We all make dumb mistakes sometimes. Like me. I do enough stupid shit in one day for the both of us."
Guilt sucked. It was harder than it seemed to make it go away. "Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?" She knew she was going to regret this, but for once she did owe the poor bastard. If nothing else, it would level out her karma.
"Well..." Miroku turned thoughtful for a moment.
Here it comes. He was either going to ask her to sleep with him or bear his child, to which she immediately would respond with a demand for a more reasonable request, and then would come his puppy-dog eyes and fake hurt voice, and then-
"How about I take a day or two to heal, and we meet at the pub sometime this week? Just the two of us."
Sango looked up at him in surprise. This wasn't very much like Miroku. "That's all?"
"That's all," he assured her. "No catch. No strings attached. Although if you could do me one favor..."
Ah, figures. He would be back to his old self any second now.
"If you could wear that pink ribbed turtleneck sweater you have that night, I'd appreciate it. I just really like that one." He almost sounded guilty when he said that.
That was three times in one hour that Sango had been caught off-guard. She looked at Miroku curiously. She was beginning to wonder if he was in more pain than he let on and it was making him delirious.
He just looked down at her with an innocent look of confusion. "Something wrong?"
How the hell did he do that? Not only did he have the best pokerface Sango had ever seen, but he could shift gears so quickly and easily. "No, no, I'm fine... Alright. Give me a call when you're feeling up to... going out." She hesitated as she said that. It sounded suspiciously like something else. And of course the little voice in the back of her mind was mocking her for it.
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Inuyasha checked himself in the mirror. He was in costume now. Black slacks and a dress shirt with suspenders, tie, and jacket under a tan trench coat and fedora. "Damn, I look good in this outfit." Unfortunately, it was being borrowed from the theater department who agreed to supply the TV club with any and all costumes and props they may need. He placed a toothpick in his mouth to finish off the look. Kagome had already considered a cigarette, but Inuyasha wasn't too keen on the idea, having finally kicked the habit last year. Fortunately, she was understanding.
She really wasn't that bad. Kind of cute, too. He glanced over to see her back was turned. She was looking into the booth talking to Shippo, and Inuyasha took a moment to check her out. Miroku was right. She really was beautiful. He doubted she'd go for a guy like him, but there was really no harm in looking. Then again, why was he thinking that? That was wierd.
The sound of footsteps behind him drew his attention back to the door of the studio. "'Bout time," he said in his usual challenging tone. "What kept you guy-holy shit!" Miroku was shirtless with first-degree burns all over his chest and Sango was looking absolutely mortified. "What the fuck happened to you?!"
Inuyasha heard Kagome gasp behind him and a squeak from Shippo that sounded like some sort of expletive or another.
"I'd really rather not talk about it," Miroku said softly. He handed Inuyasha the drinks and laid down on his back on the couch while Sango merely sat across from him trying not to make eye contact with anyone.
"Yeah," Inuyasha said after a drawn-out, awkward silence, stretching the "y" out a little. "So... are we ready to shoot the opening sequence?"
"Huh?" Kagome seemed to snap out of a trance. "Oh, sure. But we won't be able to film the first episode until it's rainy. So we'll have to wait for a storm."
"Or Godot," Shippo remarked. "You know, whichever comes first." To explain himself, he snatched up a copy of the paper from the desk and pointed to the five day forecast which predicted a sunny week. Oh, hell. This might be a little harder than previously thought.
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Inuyasha had insisted on being the one to drive them into town to do the shooting. The problem was that he seemed to have absolutely no idea that speeding was bad. Shippo gripped the door and his seatbelt for dear life. The camera, tripod, and microphone were all in the trunk, so at least those were in relative safety. More than could be said for the passengers. Sango and Miroku had opted to stay behind and go to the McDougan House which was where the campus medical staff worked. Lucky stiffs.
"Inuyasha!" Kagome shrieked. "Slow down! You almost hit that guy back there!"
"He should've taken the crosswalk when the light was red," Inuyasha said nonchalantly.
"He did! And the light was red!"
"No it wasn't." Inuyasha simply kept up his breakneck driving.
"Yes, it was!" Kagome insisted.
Inuyasha scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Yeah right."
"It was red!" Kagome continued. She hadn't seemed to have caught on yet that there was no point in trying to reason with Inuyasha over this.
"I didn't see it," Inuyasha said dismissively.
"That's no excuse! You're supposed to keep your eyes on the road and pay attention to the signs!" Kagome argued before she squeaked in dismay at being roughly tossed in her seat from a sharp turn.
Inuyasha just grunted out something unintelligable and turned on the radio. Shippo felt his head spinning from the deafening blast out of the subwoofers.
"System of a Down. Awesome!" That was Inuyasha for you. If it had melody and distorted guitars, he probably listened to it. Though Shippo really wished that he could have picked a radio station that was playing something less punishing.
"Turn it down!" Kagome shouted over the music, trying to cover her ears and grip onto something at once.
"I thought you wanted me to watch the road?" Inuyasha asked with feigned innocence and a sarcastic smirk. Shippo knew that the bastard was enjoying this way too much.
Kagome let out an irritated shriek and switched the radio off. Shippo wondered if her ears were ringing like his from the abrupt silence.
The screech of tires and the strong centrifugal force signalled Inuyasha's signature approach to parallel parking. When the car came to a stop, he rolled down his window and stuck his head out, looking down to see his distance from the curb. He then pulled his head back in and smirked. "Damn, I'm good."
Inuyasha hopped out of the car as if this whole trip had been just a walk in the park. Shippo on the other hand was still feeling a little weak in the knees and Kagome looked a little pale. He took a minute to look around before he noticed something. "Inuyasha, we can't park here. The sign says that-"
"The sign can kiss my ass," Inuyasha interrupted as he popped the trunk. "We're not gonna be here long, so just relax." He quickly slipped on his trenchcoat and fedora and placed the toothpick in his mouth. "What do you think?" he asked, striking a pose.
"You're a handsome devil," Kagome said as she straightened herself out. "And I do mean 'devil.'"
"I prefer hellion or demon," Inuyasha replied with a smirk. "Or sexy beast."
Kagome just rolled her eyes and helped Shippo set the camera up. To be honest, Shippo was having a hard time telling if Kagome and Inuyasha were arguing or flirting. Inuyasha was being his usual sarcastic self with puerile wit and joking egotism. But he seemed to actually enjoy these little arguments with Kagome. It was almost as if he went out of his way to argue with her when he wasn't being moody. This would require further investigation, but it was an intriguing theory.
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Shooting the opening sequence was relatively easy. Inuyasha was getting a good grasp over how his character should behave. And despite all their arguing earlier, he actually listened to Kagome's direction. They finished the final shot with Inuyasha pulling the brim of his fedora down over his eyes. "Alright, cut. Great. We've got everything we need, guys. Let's pack up."
Inuyasha took off the fedora and quickly fanned himself with it. "You got my good side, right?" he joked, putting on a very snooty and haughty look and stance.
"Your what now?" Shippo shot back with a smirk. Inuyasha would have flipped him off again if Kagome hadn't put her two cents in.
"I wasn't aware that a sexy beast had a bad side." Now that was what he liked to hear. Inuyasha hadn't quite figured out why yet, but arguing with Kagome was kind of fun. For the past several days, they had often broken into arguments about the most inane or irrelevant topics imaginable. Even in the car when she was getting pissed at him, he thought he heard a hint of amusement in her voice somewhere.
"Why don't you take a closer look and find out." He then gave her an evil grin, which brought forth a gasp and wide eyes. What was she making a big deal about?
"Inuyasha... what's with your teeth?" Kagome asked, still a little startled.
"What, do I have something in them?" He immediately reached up and rubbed his teeth a little.
"No, I mean... you have fangs!" Oh, that's right! He had never grinned enough to show her his teeth before.
"Oh, those." He grinned again, showing off his fangs. "After graduation I thought of getting a tattoo, but instead decided to have my dentist just sharpen these."
Kagome stared at him in surprise for a moment. "Wouldn't that cost an arm and a leg?"
Inuyasha just shrugged. "My family's reasonably well off. Can't say my dad liked the idea too much, but he got over it."
"Ahem!" They were taken out of their conversation by Shippo's annoyed voice. "I'm still waiting to hear something along the lines of 'Here, Shippo, let me get that for you.'" As it was, he was trying to carry the camera, tripod, and microphone back to the car himself.
Inuyasha just quirked a brow and smirked for an answer while Kagome got the tripod. They all walked back to the car in silence and drove off as they came: in a blur.
Inuyasha glanced down at the digital clock on the radio when they were about half-way to campus. "Damn. 7:30 already. You guys want to stop somewhere for dinner?"
"Ooh!" Shippo seemed to have momentarily forgotten his terror at that. "How about Rudy's?"
"Fuck yeah!" Inuyasha shouted in agreement. "I haven't eaten there since last semester."
"What's Rudy's?" Kagome asked, opening one eye as she held her seatbelt like a lifeline.
"It's a 50's style diner," Shippo answered. "They've got the best fountain drinks in town."
It only took another couple of minutes before the arrived at the diner. It was a rail-car shaped building with faux-chrome siding, large round windows, and a big neon sign over the entrance that said "Rudy's Diner" in red retro letters.
The trio all walked in together and stood up front to wait for a server. "What do you guys recommend?" Kagome asked conversationally.
"Just take a look at the menu," Shippo answered. "There's all kinds of stuff here. It's really hard to pick."
"Shippo!" came an excited shout. Inuyasha looked over to see a girl in her late teens with long blonde hair and red-brown eyes wearing a restaurant uniform.
"Hey, Kirara!" Shippo answered back. "Why didn't you tell me you were working here?"
"Sorry," she answered with a smile. "I've just been really busy lately with classes and everything." She turned her eyes to the rest of the group. "Hey, Inuyasha, what's with the Humphry Bogart get-up?"
Inuyasha simply pointed to Kagome with a half-smile.
"She your girlfriend?" Kirara asked innocently.
Inuyasha immediately felt a slight warmth come to his face. "No! She's uh..."
Kagome lightly slapped his arm with the back of her hand and smiled. "I'm Kagome Higurashi. I just transferred to the school last week."
"Oh, you're Kagome! Shippo told me a couple days ago that you were joining the TV club." A light cough from behind Kirara and she flushed slightly, looking back to see a rather irritated manager.
"Oh! Sorry, sir." She smiled nervously before he walked off. Kirara then turned back to the others. "Sorry. Come on, I'll get you guys a table."
"Non-smoking," Inuyasha remarked as she started toward the smoking section.
"Oh right, you quit last year," Kirara remarked. "I'd almost forgotten, it's been so long since I've seen you guys." She then led them to a booth with a window facing the street. She gave them three menus and smiled. "I'll be back in a minute." With that, she strode off with Shippo watching her go with a little smile on his face.
"I think after we get our drinks we should get a bucket of cold water to dump on him," Inuyasha said to Kagome.
Kagome giggled a little and glanced at Shippo over her menu. "Does he have a little crush on her?"
Inuyasha just rolled his eyes. "We're talking about him as if he isn't here, and he has yet to notice. What do you think?"
It was kind of annyoing really. It wasn't that Inuyasha didn't like Kirara. On the contrary, she was a good friend and had been for a couple years now ever since Sango introduced her. But the way she and Shippo constantly drooled over each other without ever actually making any moves was starting to get on his nerves.
Kagome had a very thoughtful, almost impish grin on her face when Inuyasha looked back to her. "What are you planning?"
She chuckled softly and looked up at him, causing Inuyasha to once again feel that heat in his face which he had to use every ounce of willpower he had from his training as an actor to push back down. How the hell did she do that? "I've always wanted to play matchmaker. Now I've got two couples to meddle with."
Inuyasha just raised a brow and tried to keep the grin contained to a smirk. This girl was nowhere near as innocent as she let on. And though it took a lot of mental battles throughout the rest of the night, he was finally able to admit, at least to himself... he thought it was pretty hot.
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Author's Notes: Yeah, I just had to put Kirara in again, didn't I? I decided to go for a different incarnation this time while still keeping some of the elements I thought were pretty close from Let the Music Be Your Master. It just seemed like a fun challenge.
Anyway, my reviewers...
Mimiko: Don't get too used to this pace. I'm having a creative spike, and those don't last long. I'm just trying to milk it for everything its worth. But thanks for the compliment on the character interaction. It's one element I've really been focusing on honing as I continue writing, as I feel it's one of my strengths.
bluefuzzyelf: Yeah, I figured that without certain events, Inuyasha wouldn't really hold the grudge very long. At first, I wrote him acting normal as if out of spite to say that being dumped didn't bother him. But now... well I think we can all tell that he really is starting to loosen up by now.
Araine: Congratulations, you have just discovered one of my weaknesses. Though "bribe" is a strong word. I prefer to think of it as "incentive," wink, wink.
Father Malvado: I agree. TV sucks. Except Adult Swim.
lilly: Mostly what stops us is that we have very limited attention spans.