Disclaimer: Sigh...I thought I made this clear already.
AN: Oh my lord...you know how my kitty was gone for three months? He just came back yesterday, fatter than ever. I wonder who's been secretly feeding him...but just an hour ago he ran outside again. Darn.
Pirate Pash
Chapter 4 - Caught
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"So..." The silence hung in the air awkwardly. "What exactly do you think happened in there?"
"What do you mean?"
"You know exactly what I mean...when we followed him into the room he was all panicky and stuff...like he already knew they were in there."
"Well, maybe that's why he asked you to guard the room in the first place, Sango. Because he was hiding them, seems to make sense."
"You think so? I mean, we were just - Ahhhh! Miroku, you pervert!!! Do you have to do that when we're having a serious conversation?!!" She dug her nails into his roaming hand to accent her point.
"Ow...but Sango, seriously, I had no idea." Miroku grinned, his eyebrows arching dangerously. "If there is a better time for this sort of thing don't hesitate to..."
Kagome stirred in bed at the suddenness of a loud slap in the air, and began rolling and tossing in bed. Oh, how she wished she could have just sat up and discovered she was in her bright and cheery room, right next to Souta's. She'd get up at the crack of dawn and prepare breakfast for both of them before she'd get to work on her garden...
What she got instead was Miroku's smiley face mere centimetres from hers, his cheek imprinted with a bright red hand mark. "Mornin' sunshine."
"Fu-cra-shi-you-er!" Kagome leaped from the bed in shock, nearly colliding her head into his. He managed to scoot back before that happened. "What was that for? You scared me half to death!"
He backed away slightly, the annoying smile still on his lips. "Just admiring your beauty, Miss Kagome."
Sango shot him a dangerous look from her seat, her arms crossed furiously. She growled. "Miroku, don't put your face so close to the girl...you don't want her to pass out again, do you?"
"Very charming, Sango. But - "
Kagome coughed loudly, inconveniently cutting off his comeback. "You...you two?"
Sango's eyes brightened as she clapped her hands together. "Oh, how rude of us! I'm Sango, and this lech here is Miroku. We've met before, remember?"
"What do you want with me?" She scowled all of a sudden, as if remembering a terrible memory, slowly edging away from the two as she did so. "Listen, I don't want to talk to you guys. You're pirates." She spat it out like it was a disease rotting her tongue off.
If she had been paying more attention, she would have noticed the small pang of hurt that flashed in their eyes. But she was too busy reaching for a pillow nearby and bringing it in front of her, just in case she needed to defend herself; before realising it belonged to a pirate and threw it into a wall in disgust. She stared back at the two. "Well, what do you guys want with me?"
"Kagome, what makes you think we want anything? Isn't it alright for us to talk to you?" Sango asked quietly, "You know, we're not all as bad as you make us out to be."
"Don't call me by my name! We are not associated in any way or form." Kagome snapped. "If I'm caught alongside you guys I could get hanged, you know that? You know that if you're caught you'll be hanged?"
"Miss Kagome, we are probably far more aware of that than you. But we all have our reasons for doing this. You should not simply judge us by our cover." Miroku explained tiredly and glanced over at Sango, both wondering the same thing: What had happened to this girl?
The girl glared at him. "I do not do such a thing, but pirates are an exception. They destroy villages, kill people, and sink boats, what do you expect me to think of you?"
Miroku and Sango remained silent. This girl obviously detested pirates more than they had thought she had. She didn't seem that way earlier though...that was probably because Inuyasha was around. And no one put pirates down when he was around...
She rubbed her eyes in annoyance; all the while not able to help but notice something was oddly different... "What room is this?" She asked. "I didn't know the boat could even have a room this big." She took a quick glance around and at the bed she was currently residing in. "It's much spacier. Is this the captain's room?"
"No. We just took over the enemy's boat. Our old one was too crappy because some idiot shot a cannon into our ship at the last moment and sunk it. We had only a minute or so to grab all our stuff and get onto this one. Nice, huh?"
Kagome paused to think this over, not even realising she was chatting with the people she hated the most in this world. "Wait...this all happened when I was unconscious?"
Sango nodded slowly. "Yep, after we found you and Shippou, some maniac on the other boat tried to shoot us down, but Inuyasha took care of him."
She bit her lip as she tried to remember the small detail. "Wait...Shi-Shippou...the little boy, is he alright? What happened to the enemy? Where are we?"
"Whoa, slow down. Shippou's fine." Sango assured her calmly and handed her a mug of some steaming brown liquid.
She took it with caution and gave it a tiny sniff. She normally would not have taken anything some pirate gave her, but her stomach was about it eat itself up any second now. She hadn't been fed since...well, since before leaving the island for the medicine. Deciding it smelt pretty safe, Kagome took a tiny sip. It was the most magnificent thing she had ever tasted. "What's...?"
"Hot water with chocolate powder. Also called 'hot chocolate', in case you didn't know." Sango said sarcastically, but shut her mouth when Kagome meekly lowered her head. "You...you really don't know what it is?"
"No. We never got stuff like this...all the money I got went towards my brother's medicine and sometimes our food." Kagome used this opportunity to gulp down more of her drink. Why she was telling this to them, she didn't have a clue. She sure as hell didn't trust them...but she'd never really had friends before...or anyone at all to talk to...
"That must suck." Miroku chided in, bored of only listening and not joining in on this conversation. "You must really love your brother then, huh?"
He winced painfully when Sango stomped his foot under a table where the now depressed Kagome couldn't see. She shot him a terrifying glance, the: I'll-kill-you-later-when-we're-alone look and turned back to the girl with a kind smile. "By the way, how did you take care of that brute?"
"Oh...him." Kagome tapped the cup nervously in her hands. "I shot him with the bow and arrow I found, but I didn't do it on purpose, I swear! I feel awful about it, because it was an accident...and I - "
Kagome soon found Miroku sniggering behind his hand and Sango bursting into a fit of giggles.
"What exactly is so funny about me killing someone? It was horrible!"
"We're not laughing because you killed him, we're laughing because you feel bad about it!" Sango couldn't contain herself anymore and ended up tossing her head back in laughter.
"Miss..." Miroku chided in, laughing equally as hard as Sango. "What kind of a ship do you think you're on?"
She huffed out her chest angrily, "I know perfectly well I'm on a pirate ship! What does this have to do with anything? And can you two please stop laughing at me?"
Sango finally quieted down until she was just breathing heavily. "Listen. You must understand one thing before you can carry on around here. Lives...especially the ones of enemies, aren't taken seriously when you're a pirate. We've lost probably a hundred of our men up until today and no one cries about it. If we mourned so much about every death we'd probably never stop crying."
Miroku nodded at Sango's explanation. "And that's why we were laughing at you when you felt bad about killing the enemy."
"That's sick!" Kagome said suddenly, "So if one of your friends just died the next day you wouldn't even feel bad about it?" She mumbled under her breath. "Well, this is typical pirate behaviour..."
Sango shook her head. "That isn't it. We'd feel sad, of course, if they were our friends. But crying about it won't do anything but make us feel worse about it. After all, we all die someday..."
What they were saying was true, she knew, but it was still difficult for her to understand the way their mind worked. When her parents died...she couldn't even remember how much she had cried, and cried, and cried. It was a sob fest for probably half a year before it finally sank in.
Maybe that was why she took death so seriously.
She lowered her head softly before snapping it up all of a sudden. "Wait...but if our old ship sunk, and there's no enemies on this ship, what did you do with all the people?"
"Oh! Them. We just chucked all the bodies in the water. We made sure they were all dead before we threw them in, don't want anyone hanging onto this boat!" Miroku said that so cheerfully it actually sent an eerie chill up her spine.
Sango spotted the worried look on her face. "Don't look so scared. Think about it this way. If we had been the ones who had lost the fight, we would be swimming at the bottom of the ocean right now. It's a live or die situation here."
"I suppose...but then, what's going to happen to me?" She pointed a finger at herself. "Wasn't I going to jump...the plank?"
Instantaneously both heads turned away from her. "Well, we're hoping the crew doesn't mind you staying.........they think women are bad luck aboard the ship."
Kagome stared at Sango with a weird look on her face, "But you........."
Sango stared her straight in the eye. "I'm a man."
Kagome's face paled a thousand colours. "What? You...you're a man?!!! But - "
Suddenly, Miroku's snorting could be heard next to her. Kagome looked over to see him holding his stomach in laughter. She stared back at the older girl evilly.
"Ha...I'm just kidding, I'm 100% woman, but I'm kind of an exception. My father was a pretty well known pirate on this ship.........as was my little brother when he turned fourteen. I was dragged along onto this ship as a cook, since these idiots can't recognise a turnip from a pineapple. At first they opposed of me, but when we got attacked I managed to kill a few of the enemies. Inuyasha finally let me join the crew, but a lot of assholes here still make comments every once in a while."
Kagome smirked quietly at Sango's choice of language. Like her they both liked to swear, as inappropriate as it was for women to do so.
Sango looked her dead in the eyes, her expression never changing. "But they died. They got killed in one of our battles."
Well, that was completely unexpected. "Oh...I'm sorry..."
"Don't be." She replied with a forced grin. "Remember what we told you?"
Kagome nodded again before turning to face them with a bothered look on her face. "But one thing I still don't understand. Why are you guys being so nice to me? If this is a sick ploy of some sort, I'm one step ahead of you."
"Keh. Idiot. How long does it take for you to figure out that someone's not making shit up?" The rude voice barked loudly, and all three of them turned to stare at an amused Inuyasha standing in the doorway.
"You!" Kagome growled, already scrambling to her feet as she stared at the captain. "You...you jerk! YOU ASSHOLE!!!"
Now what was this girl's problem? "Oi! What the hell did I do?"
She shook her head irritably as she gnawed her lower lip. "You...what was the big idea, making me and Shippo go into that stupid box in the floor? With no air?!!!"
What was this girl on? "Wha-? What the hell do you mean MAKING you go into that damn box? I was saving your sorry ass, you ungrateful bitch!"
She challenged him to a staring contest as she spat, "And going into a hole in the ground with NO AIR is saving me how?"
The other two pirates had to stifle back their laughter behind their hands. Never, ever had they seen Inuyasha act so calmly with anybody! If someone in the crew even dared disobeyed him, it was 'throw the moron into the sea' time. But oddly enough, Inuyasha wasn't doing anything of the sort, and he seemed to be holding back a...grin?
He struggled for an answer for a while, but gave up by throwing his hands up in the air in frustration. "W...Why the hell do I have to answer YOU? Or even talk to you? You should be fucking thanking me right now for not throwing you right into the water, where you belong."
"Oh!" She raised her hand to her mouth. "I completely forgot! Thank you so much, oh most wonderful pirate." She mocked with too much icing in her voice. "How shall I ever repay your kindness, captain?"
Inuyasha 'keh'ed' arrogantly before whirling to face the door he came from. "Well, you could cut that tone of voice, clean all the rooms aboard, and mop all the floors." He chuckled in satisfaction before he paused halfway. "Oh yea, and you can make the dinners too. Sango's food is starting to taste like crap."
Kagome paid no attention to the "What?" arising from the girl next to her, but instead ran up to Inuyasha to snatch his shoulder in an attempt to stop him from leaving. She wasn't about to become a hous...shipmaid! She had her brother to go find! "Wait, I'm not finished!"
The whole room stilled in what happened in the next two seconds. Inuyasha spun around to face the unprepared Kagome with a huge frown, his hands already forced into a tight fist. How dared this girl touch him! No one touched him except... "I said not to touch me you little...bitch!!!" His dark voice boomed as he swung his arm reflexively, but he was suddenly halted when he picked up her reaction.
She was trembling lightly and her knuckles were pale. Her teeth were jammed barred together dead tight, and her whole body was well prepared for the hit that was about to send her half-dead to the floor.
"Inuyasha! Stop!" Sango shouted suddenly, already in fighting position to defend Kagome if worse came to worse. Miroku was ready right there next to her. He cooed Inuyasha quietly as he slowly walked up to him. "Captain, please stop. She doesn't know anything."
"I already told her!" He retorted harshly, steam practically rising out of his ears. "I already fucking told her not to touch me when she was in the fucking cell! But does she listen?"
"Inuyasha, please. It's common courtesy not to curse in front of women."
He scowled menacingly. "Me, curse? These two probably swear twice as much as me!"
Miroku sighed at the truthfulness in that. "Come on, Inuyasha. We're not children, let's not make this into a competition."
A quiet sniff suddenly became apparent in the air. They all turned to face Kagome, who was now crouched on the floor sniffling into her hands.
"Oh, for Christ's sake. Stop crying." He instructed coldly, but when she didn't and rather continued to cry a river into her hands, he sighed, "Oi! I said to stop crying already! This is why women are such a pain..."
He was being such a pompous jerk! Kagome looked up from her hands all of a sudden, her eyes puffy and swollen from the tears. "I'm not crying because of you! I'm crying because I miss my brother! What's it to you?" She snapped and went back to her sobbing.
Sometimes he could not understand women. "You know...crying doesn't solve a thing."
"Wh-why are you being so heartless?" She cried breathlessly, her eyelashes soaked with tears. "Why won't you let me go home? My brother's going to die and I need to see him!"
"Well, I can't do anything about that." He replied grimly. "You're a prisoner here, and you should be thanking your stars right now you aren't dead! The dinners aren't going to cook themselves, you know."
"I'd rather die!!!" She screeched, racing back to the bed to duck under the covers. Why was he being so annoyingly stubborn now? She thought he was kind of friendly before...so much for that thought.
"Go right on ahead. No one's stopping you." He stopped to rethink. "Actually, the whole crew is dying to see you jump the plank right now. So you can either choose to commit suicide, or a smarter choice would be to cook and clean."
Kagome stilled where she lay.
"Inuyasha, that's a bit cruel, don't you think? Sentencing her to a life of cleaning?" Miroku interrupted innocently, "After all, she DID manage to kill one of Yura's men. Doesn't that at least make her one of our acquaintances?"
"Oh? She was the one who killed that bastard?" He looked fairly surprised. Kagome peeked from under the blanket to check for his reaction. "Well, normally it would classify her as one of our fighters, but I doubt she could do it again. Anyhow, it's a good punishment from earlier."
"I-I HATE YOU!" Kagome screamed, her voice unclear but still recognisable under the sheets.
"That's too bad, Kagome dear, because I rather like you right now." He grinned again before leaping out the door.
Once he had disappeared, she grumbled something rude under her breath and plopped back down onto the bed. "He's such a jerk...how do you guys stand him?"
Sango sighed warily. "You shouldn't be so angry with him...he's quite a nice person at heart. It's just...it's just Inuyasha has an image to live up to, you know? Me, Miroku and Shippo are probably the only ones who knows he has that side."
Kagome watched in disbelief. Inuyasha? Nice? Every time she even thought he was being nice, there was always a backlash. "...I don't believe it."
"Well, he WAS the one who carried you over here from our old boat when you were unconscious. I offered to do it, but he told me to screw off. That must mean something." Miroku added smartly.
"HE carried me over here? But...but why would he do that? He could've just left me there for all he cared."
Miroku shrugged. "You see? There's Inuyasha's nice side again. He would never leave a girl on a sinking ship."
"Except Yura." Sango said with a smile.
"Oh...that reminds me." Kagome wiped her nose with the back of her hand. "Who's Keekio? Inuyasha keeps referring her to me..."
No answer.
Kagome repeated, "I said, who's Keekio?"
"Hm? Were you saying something?" Miroku suddenly looked up from the interesting speck on the floor. "I believe I didn't hear you."
"I asked you guys who Keekio was! Sango, do you know?"
Sango turned to her with wide eyes. "What? Oh, no! No...I don't know who that is. Why do you want to know?"
She fiddled with her thumbs. "Well...on the first night I came here Inuyasha freaked out, calling me this 'Keekio' girl. I had to prove to him I wasn't her. I need to know who she is and how she was related to him."
Miroku raised an eyebrow and grinned mischievously. "And HOW did you prove that to him?"
Sango frowned and bonked him on the head. They knew who she was, all right. But Inuyasha would seriously slaughter them both if he knew they told her. "Anyways, Kagome, we don't know who she is. But maybe you should ask Inuyasha when you get to know him better."
"Get to know him better?!" Kagome scoffed. "I'd rather make friends with a diseased pig."
"Sounds about right." Miroku lowered his head and rubbed at the bump that formed on the top of his head.
"Well," Sango stood up and signalled for Miroku to do the same. "We should get going, we have to go talk to Inuyasha about something. Kagome, why don't you go...um...go find Shippou? He'll show you around."
"Wait! Don't go!" She shouted loudly, surprising the two of them. "But, but the people on this ship don't like me..."
"Do you like THEM?" Miroku retorted as he made his way towards the door, Sango trailing shortly after him.
Kagome spewed, "Ugh, of course not. I especially hate that bald guy."
"Then I don't see a problem." Miroku added smugly and smiled before walking out the door. Sango nodded kindly before disappearing out the doorway with him.
Now what was she supposed to do? She could go find Shippou, she didn't mind him at all. Rather, he was the only one on this ship she trusted, probably because he was just a kid.
But inside she still felt a little angry with herself for letting herself get along so well with pirates. They were usually snarling faced men, with only awful thoughts, but for sure she couldn't sense those vibes coming from Sango or Miroku, and they really didn't seem like too bad of people...
So what was she going to do now? For a split second Kagome considered escaping, but annoyingly enough Inuyasha always seemed to know exactly where she was headed off. 'If I try to run again I'll definitely be caught. I'll wait until they trust me a bit more and then I'll sneak away.'
She smirked at her own brilliant idea and jumped out of bed. She checked her face in a mirror nearby first to make sure her face didn't look like she had just sobbed her eyes out. It looked pretty good.
Now, to go find Shippou...
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"Hey, brat! Pass me that um...thingy... uh...compass!"
The boy sighed for the umpteenth time that afternoon. "Do your dirty work yourself. And do you even know how to work one?"
After they had transferred to this ship Inuyasha had been shouting demands at him even more constantly. And that was enough to send anyone over the edge.
Being a navigator at such a young age should've been something to be proud of, but with a captain like that running around yelling at him twenty-four seven was enough to make anyone feel unimportant.
He glared over again at the man next to him. Pathetic.
Every two weeks or so there was a new assistant sent in to help him with the navigations; since there was no way in the world he could do everything himself. But annoyingly enough, no one has been able to live up to the job, complaining that it was too much work. The truth was that the word 'math' wasn't even in their vocabulary.
"Hey you!" Shippou looked at the guy with disgust and threw a folded pamphlet at him. "Can you find me that island on the map under D3 and find us a route to get onto the island?"
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Probably Inuyasha coming in to shout at him again. "We haven't found anything yet! Jeez! You were gone for about five minutes!"
"Um...sorry, is this a bad time?" Oddly enough it wasn't Inuyasha, most likely because this voice belonged to a girl. There was Sango on this ship and whatsherface, Kagome. Considering Sango would've just barged right in by now, so...
"Kagome! Come in!" Shippou called to the closed door.
The door creaked open slowly, and a head swung in through the crack. This room had been impossible to find because the two idiots hadn't told her where he was. All the while trying to find him men standing around on deck were either scowling at her, or making suggestive hand gestures.
Kagome looked around the plain room, filled with only a large desk with a bunch of items on it. She smiled sweetly at him. "Hi Shippou, are you okay?"
"Wow!" The assistant had stopped flipping the map this way and that, and turned to face the stranger beauty standing at the door. He hadn't seen women other than Sango for about a year! Let alone this one was a beaut! So the rumours aboard were true...
"Um...and you are?" Kagome asked politely.
The boy's face reddened as he avoided eye contact. "My name's Hojo. I'm the main navigator for this ship."
Shippou whacked him over the head with a cup. "Idiot. I'M the navigator, and this is your first day of assisting me! Stop sucking up to Kagome and get down to work!"
Kagome smirked. Shippou was a lot bossier than he first seemed. "Shippou, I just came to ask you if you were okay."
"I'm fine. What about you? I've heard some stories."
What kind of stories had he heard? "Oh...that's not important." Kagome suddenly took a lot of interest to all the equipment. "Say, is there a destination for this ship?"
Hojo turned from his work and smiled happily at her. "Of course, ma'am. All this time we've been trying to find - "
The poor guy was cut off when Shippou bashed his face in with the heavy gold compass. "We've been trying to find...a - um...town."
"What town?" She asked. Were they going to trash another village?
"You wouldn't know it." Shippou quickly retorted. "But forget that. How are you liking this new ship?"
He was changing the subject, as if it weren't obvious enough. Hojo had said all this time they've been trying to find something. She needed to fill in the blank. "The boat's nice. A lot bigger than the old one."
"Hm." Shippou wasn't even listening to her anymore.
"Well, Shippou, what do I do now? The captain said I had to cook or something..." She had decided to become the cook for the time being, since cooking was probably a hundred times easier than cleaning up after a huge group of slobs. And she didn't mind it that much. She'd always cooked for Souta...and he'd loved her cooking.
"You're cooking now?!!" Shippou instantaneously turned to face her with a huge grin on his face. "Thank god. Sango's food was getting disgustingly repetitive. Go find her. She'll show you to the kitchen. "
"But she just sent me here. Her and Miroku went to talk to Inuyasha."
"Oh? Well, then. I'm busy, so..." Shippou stared at the nincompoop next to him still trying to decipher the alphabet. "Hojo! You take Kagome to the kitchen! And you'd better come back!"
"Huh?" The guy turned to his tiny boss, finally processing what he had said through his head. "Yes sir! I will be back after I show this lady to the kitchens! Yes sir I will!"
"Just get going already..." Shippou grumbled and turned back to his work impatiently. The jewel wasn't about to find itself.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"So, Kagome." Hojo asked the girl as they made their way through the hallway. "How are you liking it here?"
"I hate it."
"Oh...well, how do you like Sango's food? It's not that bad, actually, it just gets sickening after a long period of time." He grinned.
"I haven't been fed yet."
"Oh..."
"Um...Hojo, was it?" She all of a sudden stopped walking and turned back to face him. "Can you tell me where the captain's room is?"
"Well...sure. But may I ask why?"
Kagome whispered in his ear. "I have to go talk to Sango, about girly things."
His face reddened and he nodded dumbly. "Down the hallway, and upstairs to your right. The largest set of doors."
The woman had sped away before he could finish.
Kagome watched her step as she jumped the stairs two at a time. She didn't want to know where the damn kitchen was...she wanted to know what Sango and Miroku had to discuss with Inuyasha.
She stopped running when she paused outside the large doors Hojo had described. There was some faint chatting going on inside, so Kagome stuck her ear to the door and listened.
"But Inuyasha! You can't do that!" She heard Sango demanding.
Inuyasha can't do what? Shoot, if only she came earlier to eavesdrop.
"Shut up, Sango. I don't need you guys lecturing me. I've got enough problems right now as it is."
She heard Miroku coughing. "Inuyasha, is it THAT hard to drop her off at some nearby town without actually bringing the ship to dock?"
"You're a moron, Miroku. Do you think that girl won't go telling every soul in that town where she'd been? The navy will be after us in a second."
"That may be true, but I don't think she'd do something like that."
Inuyasha growled. "What? So you guys know each other that well already? If I remember correctly she was the one freaking out about being near us."
"But we can't blame her for that! Any normal person would freak out if they knew they could be hanged for just being around us!" Sango replied harshly. "And the crew aren't ecstatic about having her around either! It would be best if we just let her go."
"Best?! You're letting me down Sango. I thought you'd be smarter than that." Inuyasha snorted. "You DO realise that if I did let her go safely, that the crew would think I'm a fucking wuss?"
"And you're not...?"
"Miroku, shut the fuck up. Don't think I can't threaten you just because I know you better than the rest of them."
"Woah. Inuyasha, calm down. We're just asking of you to let her go...you should know that her brother is very sick." Sango pleaded.
"How many fucking times must I hear that? I'm the gaddamn captain of this ship, and I don't give a fuck about her stupid brother! Does it look like I have no problems of my own?"
"Well, not a lot. You're trying to find that stupid treasure. And that's about it." Sango added again.
What treasure were they talking about? Kagome pressed her ear closer to the door to hear more clearly.
"I also have to please my crew, take care of damn enemies, keep us from being hanged, and deal with assholes like you two! So now you want me to worry about some bitch and her sick brother?! I don't give a rats ass about them."
"So I'm assuming letting her go is out of the question."
"I'm making her the damn maid, is that not enough? Normally prisoners are killed immediately, and she's still walking around here. I'm starting to consider getting rid of her so you two stop acting so fucking weird!" The captain yelled hoarsely.
"But captain, she's so innocent. She doesn't deserve this lifestyle at all...and what are you grinning about?"
"She's not innocent enough to learn not to eavesdrop, apparently. Hey bitch! Come in here for a second!"
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
AN: Well, that chapter was slow. Lots of interesting stuff should begin soon. So stay tuned!
*~Sorena~*
AN: Oh my lord...you know how my kitty was gone for three months? He just came back yesterday, fatter than ever. I wonder who's been secretly feeding him...but just an hour ago he ran outside again. Darn.
Pirate Pash
Chapter 4 - Caught
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"So..." The silence hung in the air awkwardly. "What exactly do you think happened in there?"
"What do you mean?"
"You know exactly what I mean...when we followed him into the room he was all panicky and stuff...like he already knew they were in there."
"Well, maybe that's why he asked you to guard the room in the first place, Sango. Because he was hiding them, seems to make sense."
"You think so? I mean, we were just - Ahhhh! Miroku, you pervert!!! Do you have to do that when we're having a serious conversation?!!" She dug her nails into his roaming hand to accent her point.
"Ow...but Sango, seriously, I had no idea." Miroku grinned, his eyebrows arching dangerously. "If there is a better time for this sort of thing don't hesitate to..."
Kagome stirred in bed at the suddenness of a loud slap in the air, and began rolling and tossing in bed. Oh, how she wished she could have just sat up and discovered she was in her bright and cheery room, right next to Souta's. She'd get up at the crack of dawn and prepare breakfast for both of them before she'd get to work on her garden...
What she got instead was Miroku's smiley face mere centimetres from hers, his cheek imprinted with a bright red hand mark. "Mornin' sunshine."
"Fu-cra-shi-you-er!" Kagome leaped from the bed in shock, nearly colliding her head into his. He managed to scoot back before that happened. "What was that for? You scared me half to death!"
He backed away slightly, the annoying smile still on his lips. "Just admiring your beauty, Miss Kagome."
Sango shot him a dangerous look from her seat, her arms crossed furiously. She growled. "Miroku, don't put your face so close to the girl...you don't want her to pass out again, do you?"
"Very charming, Sango. But - "
Kagome coughed loudly, inconveniently cutting off his comeback. "You...you two?"
Sango's eyes brightened as she clapped her hands together. "Oh, how rude of us! I'm Sango, and this lech here is Miroku. We've met before, remember?"
"What do you want with me?" She scowled all of a sudden, as if remembering a terrible memory, slowly edging away from the two as she did so. "Listen, I don't want to talk to you guys. You're pirates." She spat it out like it was a disease rotting her tongue off.
If she had been paying more attention, she would have noticed the small pang of hurt that flashed in their eyes. But she was too busy reaching for a pillow nearby and bringing it in front of her, just in case she needed to defend herself; before realising it belonged to a pirate and threw it into a wall in disgust. She stared back at the two. "Well, what do you guys want with me?"
"Kagome, what makes you think we want anything? Isn't it alright for us to talk to you?" Sango asked quietly, "You know, we're not all as bad as you make us out to be."
"Don't call me by my name! We are not associated in any way or form." Kagome snapped. "If I'm caught alongside you guys I could get hanged, you know that? You know that if you're caught you'll be hanged?"
"Miss Kagome, we are probably far more aware of that than you. But we all have our reasons for doing this. You should not simply judge us by our cover." Miroku explained tiredly and glanced over at Sango, both wondering the same thing: What had happened to this girl?
The girl glared at him. "I do not do such a thing, but pirates are an exception. They destroy villages, kill people, and sink boats, what do you expect me to think of you?"
Miroku and Sango remained silent. This girl obviously detested pirates more than they had thought she had. She didn't seem that way earlier though...that was probably because Inuyasha was around. And no one put pirates down when he was around...
She rubbed her eyes in annoyance; all the while not able to help but notice something was oddly different... "What room is this?" She asked. "I didn't know the boat could even have a room this big." She took a quick glance around and at the bed she was currently residing in. "It's much spacier. Is this the captain's room?"
"No. We just took over the enemy's boat. Our old one was too crappy because some idiot shot a cannon into our ship at the last moment and sunk it. We had only a minute or so to grab all our stuff and get onto this one. Nice, huh?"
Kagome paused to think this over, not even realising she was chatting with the people she hated the most in this world. "Wait...this all happened when I was unconscious?"
Sango nodded slowly. "Yep, after we found you and Shippou, some maniac on the other boat tried to shoot us down, but Inuyasha took care of him."
She bit her lip as she tried to remember the small detail. "Wait...Shi-Shippou...the little boy, is he alright? What happened to the enemy? Where are we?"
"Whoa, slow down. Shippou's fine." Sango assured her calmly and handed her a mug of some steaming brown liquid.
She took it with caution and gave it a tiny sniff. She normally would not have taken anything some pirate gave her, but her stomach was about it eat itself up any second now. She hadn't been fed since...well, since before leaving the island for the medicine. Deciding it smelt pretty safe, Kagome took a tiny sip. It was the most magnificent thing she had ever tasted. "What's...?"
"Hot water with chocolate powder. Also called 'hot chocolate', in case you didn't know." Sango said sarcastically, but shut her mouth when Kagome meekly lowered her head. "You...you really don't know what it is?"
"No. We never got stuff like this...all the money I got went towards my brother's medicine and sometimes our food." Kagome used this opportunity to gulp down more of her drink. Why she was telling this to them, she didn't have a clue. She sure as hell didn't trust them...but she'd never really had friends before...or anyone at all to talk to...
"That must suck." Miroku chided in, bored of only listening and not joining in on this conversation. "You must really love your brother then, huh?"
He winced painfully when Sango stomped his foot under a table where the now depressed Kagome couldn't see. She shot him a terrifying glance, the: I'll-kill-you-later-when-we're-alone look and turned back to the girl with a kind smile. "By the way, how did you take care of that brute?"
"Oh...him." Kagome tapped the cup nervously in her hands. "I shot him with the bow and arrow I found, but I didn't do it on purpose, I swear! I feel awful about it, because it was an accident...and I - "
Kagome soon found Miroku sniggering behind his hand and Sango bursting into a fit of giggles.
"What exactly is so funny about me killing someone? It was horrible!"
"We're not laughing because you killed him, we're laughing because you feel bad about it!" Sango couldn't contain herself anymore and ended up tossing her head back in laughter.
"Miss..." Miroku chided in, laughing equally as hard as Sango. "What kind of a ship do you think you're on?"
She huffed out her chest angrily, "I know perfectly well I'm on a pirate ship! What does this have to do with anything? And can you two please stop laughing at me?"
Sango finally quieted down until she was just breathing heavily. "Listen. You must understand one thing before you can carry on around here. Lives...especially the ones of enemies, aren't taken seriously when you're a pirate. We've lost probably a hundred of our men up until today and no one cries about it. If we mourned so much about every death we'd probably never stop crying."
Miroku nodded at Sango's explanation. "And that's why we were laughing at you when you felt bad about killing the enemy."
"That's sick!" Kagome said suddenly, "So if one of your friends just died the next day you wouldn't even feel bad about it?" She mumbled under her breath. "Well, this is typical pirate behaviour..."
Sango shook her head. "That isn't it. We'd feel sad, of course, if they were our friends. But crying about it won't do anything but make us feel worse about it. After all, we all die someday..."
What they were saying was true, she knew, but it was still difficult for her to understand the way their mind worked. When her parents died...she couldn't even remember how much she had cried, and cried, and cried. It was a sob fest for probably half a year before it finally sank in.
Maybe that was why she took death so seriously.
She lowered her head softly before snapping it up all of a sudden. "Wait...but if our old ship sunk, and there's no enemies on this ship, what did you do with all the people?"
"Oh! Them. We just chucked all the bodies in the water. We made sure they were all dead before we threw them in, don't want anyone hanging onto this boat!" Miroku said that so cheerfully it actually sent an eerie chill up her spine.
Sango spotted the worried look on her face. "Don't look so scared. Think about it this way. If we had been the ones who had lost the fight, we would be swimming at the bottom of the ocean right now. It's a live or die situation here."
"I suppose...but then, what's going to happen to me?" She pointed a finger at herself. "Wasn't I going to jump...the plank?"
Instantaneously both heads turned away from her. "Well, we're hoping the crew doesn't mind you staying.........they think women are bad luck aboard the ship."
Kagome stared at Sango with a weird look on her face, "But you........."
Sango stared her straight in the eye. "I'm a man."
Kagome's face paled a thousand colours. "What? You...you're a man?!!! But - "
Suddenly, Miroku's snorting could be heard next to her. Kagome looked over to see him holding his stomach in laughter. She stared back at the older girl evilly.
"Ha...I'm just kidding, I'm 100% woman, but I'm kind of an exception. My father was a pretty well known pirate on this ship.........as was my little brother when he turned fourteen. I was dragged along onto this ship as a cook, since these idiots can't recognise a turnip from a pineapple. At first they opposed of me, but when we got attacked I managed to kill a few of the enemies. Inuyasha finally let me join the crew, but a lot of assholes here still make comments every once in a while."
Kagome smirked quietly at Sango's choice of language. Like her they both liked to swear, as inappropriate as it was for women to do so.
Sango looked her dead in the eyes, her expression never changing. "But they died. They got killed in one of our battles."
Well, that was completely unexpected. "Oh...I'm sorry..."
"Don't be." She replied with a forced grin. "Remember what we told you?"
Kagome nodded again before turning to face them with a bothered look on her face. "But one thing I still don't understand. Why are you guys being so nice to me? If this is a sick ploy of some sort, I'm one step ahead of you."
"Keh. Idiot. How long does it take for you to figure out that someone's not making shit up?" The rude voice barked loudly, and all three of them turned to stare at an amused Inuyasha standing in the doorway.
"You!" Kagome growled, already scrambling to her feet as she stared at the captain. "You...you jerk! YOU ASSHOLE!!!"
Now what was this girl's problem? "Oi! What the hell did I do?"
She shook her head irritably as she gnawed her lower lip. "You...what was the big idea, making me and Shippo go into that stupid box in the floor? With no air?!!!"
What was this girl on? "Wha-? What the hell do you mean MAKING you go into that damn box? I was saving your sorry ass, you ungrateful bitch!"
She challenged him to a staring contest as she spat, "And going into a hole in the ground with NO AIR is saving me how?"
The other two pirates had to stifle back their laughter behind their hands. Never, ever had they seen Inuyasha act so calmly with anybody! If someone in the crew even dared disobeyed him, it was 'throw the moron into the sea' time. But oddly enough, Inuyasha wasn't doing anything of the sort, and he seemed to be holding back a...grin?
He struggled for an answer for a while, but gave up by throwing his hands up in the air in frustration. "W...Why the hell do I have to answer YOU? Or even talk to you? You should be fucking thanking me right now for not throwing you right into the water, where you belong."
"Oh!" She raised her hand to her mouth. "I completely forgot! Thank you so much, oh most wonderful pirate." She mocked with too much icing in her voice. "How shall I ever repay your kindness, captain?"
Inuyasha 'keh'ed' arrogantly before whirling to face the door he came from. "Well, you could cut that tone of voice, clean all the rooms aboard, and mop all the floors." He chuckled in satisfaction before he paused halfway. "Oh yea, and you can make the dinners too. Sango's food is starting to taste like crap."
Kagome paid no attention to the "What?" arising from the girl next to her, but instead ran up to Inuyasha to snatch his shoulder in an attempt to stop him from leaving. She wasn't about to become a hous...shipmaid! She had her brother to go find! "Wait, I'm not finished!"
The whole room stilled in what happened in the next two seconds. Inuyasha spun around to face the unprepared Kagome with a huge frown, his hands already forced into a tight fist. How dared this girl touch him! No one touched him except... "I said not to touch me you little...bitch!!!" His dark voice boomed as he swung his arm reflexively, but he was suddenly halted when he picked up her reaction.
She was trembling lightly and her knuckles were pale. Her teeth were jammed barred together dead tight, and her whole body was well prepared for the hit that was about to send her half-dead to the floor.
"Inuyasha! Stop!" Sango shouted suddenly, already in fighting position to defend Kagome if worse came to worse. Miroku was ready right there next to her. He cooed Inuyasha quietly as he slowly walked up to him. "Captain, please stop. She doesn't know anything."
"I already told her!" He retorted harshly, steam practically rising out of his ears. "I already fucking told her not to touch me when she was in the fucking cell! But does she listen?"
"Inuyasha, please. It's common courtesy not to curse in front of women."
He scowled menacingly. "Me, curse? These two probably swear twice as much as me!"
Miroku sighed at the truthfulness in that. "Come on, Inuyasha. We're not children, let's not make this into a competition."
A quiet sniff suddenly became apparent in the air. They all turned to face Kagome, who was now crouched on the floor sniffling into her hands.
"Oh, for Christ's sake. Stop crying." He instructed coldly, but when she didn't and rather continued to cry a river into her hands, he sighed, "Oi! I said to stop crying already! This is why women are such a pain..."
He was being such a pompous jerk! Kagome looked up from her hands all of a sudden, her eyes puffy and swollen from the tears. "I'm not crying because of you! I'm crying because I miss my brother! What's it to you?" She snapped and went back to her sobbing.
Sometimes he could not understand women. "You know...crying doesn't solve a thing."
"Wh-why are you being so heartless?" She cried breathlessly, her eyelashes soaked with tears. "Why won't you let me go home? My brother's going to die and I need to see him!"
"Well, I can't do anything about that." He replied grimly. "You're a prisoner here, and you should be thanking your stars right now you aren't dead! The dinners aren't going to cook themselves, you know."
"I'd rather die!!!" She screeched, racing back to the bed to duck under the covers. Why was he being so annoyingly stubborn now? She thought he was kind of friendly before...so much for that thought.
"Go right on ahead. No one's stopping you." He stopped to rethink. "Actually, the whole crew is dying to see you jump the plank right now. So you can either choose to commit suicide, or a smarter choice would be to cook and clean."
Kagome stilled where she lay.
"Inuyasha, that's a bit cruel, don't you think? Sentencing her to a life of cleaning?" Miroku interrupted innocently, "After all, she DID manage to kill one of Yura's men. Doesn't that at least make her one of our acquaintances?"
"Oh? She was the one who killed that bastard?" He looked fairly surprised. Kagome peeked from under the blanket to check for his reaction. "Well, normally it would classify her as one of our fighters, but I doubt she could do it again. Anyhow, it's a good punishment from earlier."
"I-I HATE YOU!" Kagome screamed, her voice unclear but still recognisable under the sheets.
"That's too bad, Kagome dear, because I rather like you right now." He grinned again before leaping out the door.
Once he had disappeared, she grumbled something rude under her breath and plopped back down onto the bed. "He's such a jerk...how do you guys stand him?"
Sango sighed warily. "You shouldn't be so angry with him...he's quite a nice person at heart. It's just...it's just Inuyasha has an image to live up to, you know? Me, Miroku and Shippo are probably the only ones who knows he has that side."
Kagome watched in disbelief. Inuyasha? Nice? Every time she even thought he was being nice, there was always a backlash. "...I don't believe it."
"Well, he WAS the one who carried you over here from our old boat when you were unconscious. I offered to do it, but he told me to screw off. That must mean something." Miroku added smartly.
"HE carried me over here? But...but why would he do that? He could've just left me there for all he cared."
Miroku shrugged. "You see? There's Inuyasha's nice side again. He would never leave a girl on a sinking ship."
"Except Yura." Sango said with a smile.
"Oh...that reminds me." Kagome wiped her nose with the back of her hand. "Who's Keekio? Inuyasha keeps referring her to me..."
No answer.
Kagome repeated, "I said, who's Keekio?"
"Hm? Were you saying something?" Miroku suddenly looked up from the interesting speck on the floor. "I believe I didn't hear you."
"I asked you guys who Keekio was! Sango, do you know?"
Sango turned to her with wide eyes. "What? Oh, no! No...I don't know who that is. Why do you want to know?"
She fiddled with her thumbs. "Well...on the first night I came here Inuyasha freaked out, calling me this 'Keekio' girl. I had to prove to him I wasn't her. I need to know who she is and how she was related to him."
Miroku raised an eyebrow and grinned mischievously. "And HOW did you prove that to him?"
Sango frowned and bonked him on the head. They knew who she was, all right. But Inuyasha would seriously slaughter them both if he knew they told her. "Anyways, Kagome, we don't know who she is. But maybe you should ask Inuyasha when you get to know him better."
"Get to know him better?!" Kagome scoffed. "I'd rather make friends with a diseased pig."
"Sounds about right." Miroku lowered his head and rubbed at the bump that formed on the top of his head.
"Well," Sango stood up and signalled for Miroku to do the same. "We should get going, we have to go talk to Inuyasha about something. Kagome, why don't you go...um...go find Shippou? He'll show you around."
"Wait! Don't go!" She shouted loudly, surprising the two of them. "But, but the people on this ship don't like me..."
"Do you like THEM?" Miroku retorted as he made his way towards the door, Sango trailing shortly after him.
Kagome spewed, "Ugh, of course not. I especially hate that bald guy."
"Then I don't see a problem." Miroku added smugly and smiled before walking out the door. Sango nodded kindly before disappearing out the doorway with him.
Now what was she supposed to do? She could go find Shippou, she didn't mind him at all. Rather, he was the only one on this ship she trusted, probably because he was just a kid.
But inside she still felt a little angry with herself for letting herself get along so well with pirates. They were usually snarling faced men, with only awful thoughts, but for sure she couldn't sense those vibes coming from Sango or Miroku, and they really didn't seem like too bad of people...
So what was she going to do now? For a split second Kagome considered escaping, but annoyingly enough Inuyasha always seemed to know exactly where she was headed off. 'If I try to run again I'll definitely be caught. I'll wait until they trust me a bit more and then I'll sneak away.'
She smirked at her own brilliant idea and jumped out of bed. She checked her face in a mirror nearby first to make sure her face didn't look like she had just sobbed her eyes out. It looked pretty good.
Now, to go find Shippou...
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"Hey, brat! Pass me that um...thingy... uh...compass!"
The boy sighed for the umpteenth time that afternoon. "Do your dirty work yourself. And do you even know how to work one?"
After they had transferred to this ship Inuyasha had been shouting demands at him even more constantly. And that was enough to send anyone over the edge.
Being a navigator at such a young age should've been something to be proud of, but with a captain like that running around yelling at him twenty-four seven was enough to make anyone feel unimportant.
He glared over again at the man next to him. Pathetic.
Every two weeks or so there was a new assistant sent in to help him with the navigations; since there was no way in the world he could do everything himself. But annoyingly enough, no one has been able to live up to the job, complaining that it was too much work. The truth was that the word 'math' wasn't even in their vocabulary.
"Hey you!" Shippou looked at the guy with disgust and threw a folded pamphlet at him. "Can you find me that island on the map under D3 and find us a route to get onto the island?"
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Probably Inuyasha coming in to shout at him again. "We haven't found anything yet! Jeez! You were gone for about five minutes!"
"Um...sorry, is this a bad time?" Oddly enough it wasn't Inuyasha, most likely because this voice belonged to a girl. There was Sango on this ship and whatsherface, Kagome. Considering Sango would've just barged right in by now, so...
"Kagome! Come in!" Shippou called to the closed door.
The door creaked open slowly, and a head swung in through the crack. This room had been impossible to find because the two idiots hadn't told her where he was. All the while trying to find him men standing around on deck were either scowling at her, or making suggestive hand gestures.
Kagome looked around the plain room, filled with only a large desk with a bunch of items on it. She smiled sweetly at him. "Hi Shippou, are you okay?"
"Wow!" The assistant had stopped flipping the map this way and that, and turned to face the stranger beauty standing at the door. He hadn't seen women other than Sango for about a year! Let alone this one was a beaut! So the rumours aboard were true...
"Um...and you are?" Kagome asked politely.
The boy's face reddened as he avoided eye contact. "My name's Hojo. I'm the main navigator for this ship."
Shippou whacked him over the head with a cup. "Idiot. I'M the navigator, and this is your first day of assisting me! Stop sucking up to Kagome and get down to work!"
Kagome smirked. Shippou was a lot bossier than he first seemed. "Shippou, I just came to ask you if you were okay."
"I'm fine. What about you? I've heard some stories."
What kind of stories had he heard? "Oh...that's not important." Kagome suddenly took a lot of interest to all the equipment. "Say, is there a destination for this ship?"
Hojo turned from his work and smiled happily at her. "Of course, ma'am. All this time we've been trying to find - "
The poor guy was cut off when Shippou bashed his face in with the heavy gold compass. "We've been trying to find...a - um...town."
"What town?" She asked. Were they going to trash another village?
"You wouldn't know it." Shippou quickly retorted. "But forget that. How are you liking this new ship?"
He was changing the subject, as if it weren't obvious enough. Hojo had said all this time they've been trying to find something. She needed to fill in the blank. "The boat's nice. A lot bigger than the old one."
"Hm." Shippou wasn't even listening to her anymore.
"Well, Shippou, what do I do now? The captain said I had to cook or something..." She had decided to become the cook for the time being, since cooking was probably a hundred times easier than cleaning up after a huge group of slobs. And she didn't mind it that much. She'd always cooked for Souta...and he'd loved her cooking.
"You're cooking now?!!" Shippou instantaneously turned to face her with a huge grin on his face. "Thank god. Sango's food was getting disgustingly repetitive. Go find her. She'll show you to the kitchen. "
"But she just sent me here. Her and Miroku went to talk to Inuyasha."
"Oh? Well, then. I'm busy, so..." Shippou stared at the nincompoop next to him still trying to decipher the alphabet. "Hojo! You take Kagome to the kitchen! And you'd better come back!"
"Huh?" The guy turned to his tiny boss, finally processing what he had said through his head. "Yes sir! I will be back after I show this lady to the kitchens! Yes sir I will!"
"Just get going already..." Shippou grumbled and turned back to his work impatiently. The jewel wasn't about to find itself.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"So, Kagome." Hojo asked the girl as they made their way through the hallway. "How are you liking it here?"
"I hate it."
"Oh...well, how do you like Sango's food? It's not that bad, actually, it just gets sickening after a long period of time." He grinned.
"I haven't been fed yet."
"Oh..."
"Um...Hojo, was it?" She all of a sudden stopped walking and turned back to face him. "Can you tell me where the captain's room is?"
"Well...sure. But may I ask why?"
Kagome whispered in his ear. "I have to go talk to Sango, about girly things."
His face reddened and he nodded dumbly. "Down the hallway, and upstairs to your right. The largest set of doors."
The woman had sped away before he could finish.
Kagome watched her step as she jumped the stairs two at a time. She didn't want to know where the damn kitchen was...she wanted to know what Sango and Miroku had to discuss with Inuyasha.
She stopped running when she paused outside the large doors Hojo had described. There was some faint chatting going on inside, so Kagome stuck her ear to the door and listened.
"But Inuyasha! You can't do that!" She heard Sango demanding.
Inuyasha can't do what? Shoot, if only she came earlier to eavesdrop.
"Shut up, Sango. I don't need you guys lecturing me. I've got enough problems right now as it is."
She heard Miroku coughing. "Inuyasha, is it THAT hard to drop her off at some nearby town without actually bringing the ship to dock?"
"You're a moron, Miroku. Do you think that girl won't go telling every soul in that town where she'd been? The navy will be after us in a second."
"That may be true, but I don't think she'd do something like that."
Inuyasha growled. "What? So you guys know each other that well already? If I remember correctly she was the one freaking out about being near us."
"But we can't blame her for that! Any normal person would freak out if they knew they could be hanged for just being around us!" Sango replied harshly. "And the crew aren't ecstatic about having her around either! It would be best if we just let her go."
"Best?! You're letting me down Sango. I thought you'd be smarter than that." Inuyasha snorted. "You DO realise that if I did let her go safely, that the crew would think I'm a fucking wuss?"
"And you're not...?"
"Miroku, shut the fuck up. Don't think I can't threaten you just because I know you better than the rest of them."
"Woah. Inuyasha, calm down. We're just asking of you to let her go...you should know that her brother is very sick." Sango pleaded.
"How many fucking times must I hear that? I'm the gaddamn captain of this ship, and I don't give a fuck about her stupid brother! Does it look like I have no problems of my own?"
"Well, not a lot. You're trying to find that stupid treasure. And that's about it." Sango added again.
What treasure were they talking about? Kagome pressed her ear closer to the door to hear more clearly.
"I also have to please my crew, take care of damn enemies, keep us from being hanged, and deal with assholes like you two! So now you want me to worry about some bitch and her sick brother?! I don't give a rats ass about them."
"So I'm assuming letting her go is out of the question."
"I'm making her the damn maid, is that not enough? Normally prisoners are killed immediately, and she's still walking around here. I'm starting to consider getting rid of her so you two stop acting so fucking weird!" The captain yelled hoarsely.
"But captain, she's so innocent. She doesn't deserve this lifestyle at all...and what are you grinning about?"
"She's not innocent enough to learn not to eavesdrop, apparently. Hey bitch! Come in here for a second!"
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
AN: Well, that chapter was slow. Lots of interesting stuff should begin soon. So stay tuned!
*~Sorena~*
